


Nameless Island

by Heathersparrows



Series: The Nameless Island Series [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Hellraiser Series
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe, Angst, Crossover, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Rape Aftermath, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 09:53:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heathersparrows/pseuds/Heathersparrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to "Someone To Walk With Me".</p><p>Sentenced to lifelong banishment, Severus Snape and Hagrid, who followed him into banishment, try to settle down into their new lives. But Severus's past is still haunting him ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nameless Island

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anne-Li (Anneli)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anneli/gifts).



Nameless Island

Cobblestones under my feet, cold and wet; an icy wind drives ragged grey clouds over the small patch of sky I can see. I look up from the high, forbidding buildings surrounding the inner yard where the coach has landed. We are on Nameless Island ... The walls are as high as in Azkaban ... I could see a small patch of sky there as well, when I was allowed out in the yard with Hagrid ... 

Strange to walk without chains ... unfamiliar ... Guards ... An office room. I am to stand in front of a desk. Potter speaks to the fat, short man behind the desk, who looks at me haughtily and then stares at Hagrid ... Outside the window behind him I can see into another yard. A tree – a weeping willow like the one near the lake at Hogwarts, where I used to hide when I wanted to be alone ... I remember ... it felt good to sit under the green branches, the leaves whispering around me ...

The fat man says something to Potter, who leaves without so much as looking at me again. The officer turns to me and pushes a sheet of paper into my hand. Reluctantly, I look away from the tree. The paper says that by the decree of the Ministry of Magic I have been pardoned to lifelong banishment on Nameless Island. I know. Governor Irons told me. I am to report to a Dr Evans at Hope Hospital. Maybe he wants me for making potions, but if he wants me for scrubbing the floor instead, I will do just that ...

“Would you like to brew potions again?” Ares Irons had asked me when he gave me the news that I was to be deported to Nameless Island. Brewing potions again – the prospect makes me happy ... but will I be able to? Making potions takes a lot of concentration, and sometimes I am far away ... A smell, a sound, even the sight of a patch of sky can throw me off balance, fling me into an abyss of images and sounds in my memory ... 

The fat officer reminds me of one guard at the Ministry dungeons, who sometimes put me under the Imperius – just for fun – and watched me masturbate – no, no, I do not want to think of this – I try to concentrate on what is around me now: the smell of dust, of paper, of smoke from the rusty small oven in the corner. The wooden floor is warm under my feet ...

Someone takes me around my shoulders – Hagrid. He leads me out of the building.

 

*****  
Finally, we’ve landed on Nameless Island. I help th’ Professer from th’ coach. He keeps lookin’ up at th’ sky. Harry, Derrick, and another guard I don’t know lead us inter th’ main building. We enter an office, where another uniformed man’s sittin’ behind a desk. He reads somethin’ from a sheet of paper ter th’ Professer who isn’t lis’ning. He’s lookin’ at a weepin’ willow outside instead. Small wonder. He hasn’t seen a tree that often in all these years at Azkaban ... not much sky either, I guess. – What’s this? Hasn’t moved, he has, but he’s no longer lookin’ at the willow – lookin’ at somethin’ only he can see instead ... And not a good thing, it seems ... I take him round his shoulders, and he seems ter come back ... lets me take him outside. Don’t want him ter get bad again ... Harry nods at me before he leaves with Derrick, who can’t help ter give th’ Professer a worried look ...

Sev’rus looks at me. 

“I will go to the hospital now,” he says. 

I ask him whether he’d mind if I come with him. He looks at me with these dark eyes of his – they’re never friendly, always wary ... But then he was like this when I first met him as a boy ... like a fierce creature from th’ forest ...

“No, Hagrid,” he says, friendly enough, though. “I do not mind.”

 

*****  
We leave the administration building, and it seems as if they actually let me go for good ... No guards, no chains ... I feel free, and it frightens me ...

The town is busy; people hurrying past; countless shops; carriages and coaches rolling along, carrying goods to and from a small harbour, where fishermen tend to their boats. I even see a few children running around ...

I am no longer accustomed to many people ... they make me restless and angry ... I want to get away from them ... Maybe I expect someone to recognise me and become hostile ... They always recognised me as the man who murdered Dumbledore, even in prison rags and with my head shaved ... They never left out an opportunity to show their contempt for what I have done ... I knew it would be like this, when I agreed to what Dumbledore asked of me, and I took it in my stride as part of what I had agreed to do ... But here ... I can do magic again – what if I can’t stand it any longer and fight back? Of course I do not have a wand, no one except a guard is allowed to carry a wand on Nameless Island ...

It takes me a moment to gather my wits about me to ask a man who walks by for directions to the hospital. 

“Up the ‘ill, Mate,” he says, friendly enough, adding: “You’re a new one, aren’t you?”

I do not answer. What is it to him? He looks at my shabby clothes and my bare feet, but neither pitiful nor hostile or mocking. 

“If you present your paper at Madam Dobson’s, you’ll get a pair of shoes and a new cloak for free, Mate,” he goes on. “They don’t tell you at the watch house, but Madam Dobson’ll give you whatever you need.”

I shake my head in disbelief. It does not work that way. No one will give away something for free ... I remember the shabby Muggle charity shop where we bought our clothes when I was a boy ... I got black corduroy trousers and a black sweater there once, the best things I ever got ... I wore them for a long time ... And there was of course the section for second hand school attire at Madam Malkins’s ... But nothing has ever been for free ... 

“If you’ll ‘ave somethin’ to give away one day, you can bring it to Madam Dobson. That’s the payment,” the stranger explains, as if he had read my thoughts. “It’s just round the corner!” he says before he is on his way again.

 

*****  
Madam Dobson’s shop is where th’ friendly stranger’s told us, jes’ roun’ th’ corner, not far away. And they don’t even mind Fang coming in. I order him ter lie down next ter th’ counter. Th’ shop looks small from th’ outside, like a li’l shop fer everythin’, but when Professer Snape gives th’ paper from th’ guard ter th’ friendly old lady at th’ counter, we’re lead inter a giant vault full of cloaks and other men’s clothin’ tergether with shoes in all sizes. I’m sure we’ll find some warm clothes fer th’ Professer here. 

He’d bin wary again when th’ stranger told us ‘bout th’ shop ... Always as if th’ good things in life weren’t made fer him ... 

He seems happy now, though, caressin’ th’ cloth of his new coat with his thin, elegant fingers.

“Don’t you want anything for yourself, Hagrid?” he asks me, startlin’ me out of me thoughts. I hesitate. I haven’t bin a convict at Azkaban, not now, anyway, so I think it’s a diff’rent matter. I’ve got everythin’ I need and I don’t want ter take anythin’ another poor soul might have more use fer than I do. 

“Perhaps,” he says, guessin’ me thoughts, “I can give you something? I want to give you something, Hagrid,” he adds. “A tool, perhaps?”

I’m a bit astonished, but it makes me happy that he thinks of what I might like.

“Well ...” A good, handy axe wouldn’t do no harm. Had ter leave th’ big one at Hogwarts fer th’ new gamekeeper. Behind all th’ racks with coats ‘n cloaks there’s another door, leadin’ inter another room, full of tools: hammers, saws, scythes, shovels, rakes, tongs, scissors, knives – and axes. Everythin’ in all sizes yeh can imagine. And th’ Professer goes ahead and takes a big axe leanin’ in a corner and hands it ter me. That’s the axe I had in mind, ‘xactly that one! Before I can say thank yeh, th’ Professer turns away and strides off ... He shows th’ shoes and th’ other clothin’ he’s found ter th’ friendly lady, and she nods.

“I want to give my companion something he needs,” I hear him ask her. “Is it allowed?” 

I see her bow her head gracefully and smile. 

Without another word, th’ Professer nods ter me, then busies himself with puttin’ on his new clothin’.

 

*****  
It may be foolish, but after the visit to Madam Dobson’s, I feel better ... It feels unfamiliar to wear shoes again, though ... Hagrid is happy with his new axe ... Strange how this makes me feel warm inside, observing his obvious joy ...

We walk up the hill to the hospital, which looks like all hospitals I have ever seen: Huge, grey, forbidding ... The Muggle hospital where they brought my mother and could not help her; St Mungo’s, where they could not help her either ... I took her away from there, when she asked me, brought her to Spinner’s End, her parents’ house, where she died ...

A thin, old wizard opens a door at the entrance gate and asks what we want. Again, I present the paper the guard gave me, and the old wizard waves me through.

“The giant will stay outside with the dog. He’s got no business here,” he says.

I do not know why – perhaps because I can do magic again, perhaps because of Hagrid’s loyalty and patience, his joy about his new axe – but I feel my old pride and arrogance return at the old man’s order.

“He is with me, and he will accompany me, if he wishes to do so,” I say. Perhaps the way he spoke the word “giant” made me angry ... “She can come in. But I do not wish the Mudblood to set foot into my house,” my own grandfather said when I brought him his estranged daughter, ill to the death ... The word cut like a knife, and to this day I am ashamed I had called Lily Evans by that name a few weeks before ... The old man at the hospital entrance had the same tone in his voice, saying “giant” as if speaking of the dirt under his shoes ...

Angrily, I walk past him, and Hagrid follows me, ordering Fang to stay outside, though. In passing, I see the big dog and the old man eye each other warily. Inside, I ask a young man in a mediwizard’s robe for Dr Evans, and he shows us into a waiting room.

“Dr Evans will see you in a minute,” he says, politely enough.

My sudden bout of anger has exhausted me. I sit down in one of the chairs lined up against the wall and close my eyes. Hagrid sits next to me. I feel his gaze upon me, but he does not say anything ...

We do not have to wait long. A clatter on the stone floor of the corridor, and the door to the waiting room opens. Dr Evans has a broad, open face framed by a mane of grey hair falling down to his shoulders. His upper half is clad in a blue frock coat, complete with a matching vest, shirt and tie. He is of stocky build, matching the muscular lower half of his body, that of a well-groomed grey Shire Horse. The Head Doctor at Hope Hospital is a Centaur. Regarding the difficulties Firenze had as a Divination teacher at Hogwarts, I can only imagine the adverse circumstances Dr Evans probably had to fight before becoming Head Doctor even here, at a convict colony ... 

Clear blue eyes look openly at Hagrid and me. If he has been informed about the small incident at the entrance gate, he does not mention it ...

“Welcome to Hope Hospital, Mr Snape.” He extends a big, strong hand. His fingers are warm, his handshake not over-careful, but not bone-crushing either ... I believe he means his friendly words ... He greets Hagrid with the same friendliness ... 

I agree to his suggestion to show me the potions laboratory. The idea of brewing potions again elates me. “I wish you luck,” Governor Irons had said to me in parting ... 

“You may find the laboratory not as orderly as it should be,” Dr Evans says, while we walk through two long corridors housing storerooms, a small library, a room for the medical staff on duty, and two rooms for the patients. “Since our old Potions Master passed away, two of our healers have brewed the needed potions on top of their regular work.” What he tells me shows that the hospital does not have enough staff. I can imagine that filling the position of a Potions Master at Nameless Island probably is not a high priority for the Ministry of Magic ...

As I expected after hearing what Dr Evans said, the laboratory is a mess. No one of the people working here has apparently had the time to clean up properly after finishing work. I will have to do this thoroughly – which demands a lot of caution in the use of magic. Afterwards I’ll have to make an inventory of the ingredients in stock and the ones to be replenished. I’ll also have to see which ones are missing entirely ... I do not expect to find any notes about the replenishment of ingredients in this mess. Nor do I think they will have provided a list of the salves and potions most needed at the moment ... Of course I know about the basic potions for a hospital, because I sometimes supported Poppy Pomfrey when she was too busy to make them herself ... I must ask Dr Evans for a list of what is most urgently needed at the moment ...

 

*****  
Seein’ th’ potions lab’ratory, th’ Professer becomes almos’ his old self again ... It’s good ter see ... His mind already on his work, he only nods absentmind’ly when I tell him I’ll leave now ter meet up with th’ Head Gamekeeper ter begin my work, but will be back aroun’ eight this ev’nin, provided th’ gatekeeper will let me pass this time ... Don’t want ter let Fang alone outside fer ter long either.

This Docter Evans seems ter be a decent enough man ... Have never seen a Centaur as a docter before – they tend ter stay in th’ woods and keep among themselves, mostly. My guess is, Docter Evans has been brought up by humans. Surely wasn’t easy – humans normally aren’t welcoming ter other species in that line o’work, and th’ trainin’ of a healer or a mediwizard takes a long time ... Could well be that th’ docter has come here of his own free will, not as a convict, and maybe because another hospital wouldn’t take on a Centaur docter? Seems he’ll treat th’ Professer well ...

I ask directions fer th’ Forest Administration, where I’ll meet up wi’ th’ Head Gamekeeper. When I get there, a big man with a red beard’s already waitin’ fer me. Th’ Head Gamekeeper’s name is Hubert Fitzroy, and he’s not a patient man. A brief greetin’, and we’re off ter th’ western outskirts of town. 

He shows me th’ Second Gamekeeper’s hut, where the Professer and I will live. He knows that in his recommendation, Guv’ner Irons has made it perfectly clear that he wishes th’ Professer ter live with me, at least fer a while. Th’ Professer agreed. Mr Fitzroy doesn’t seem ter be that happy about it, but he knows he couldn’t get me as a gamekeeper withou’ th’ reason why I’m on Nameless Island in the first place: Sev’rus Snape. 

Th’ hut’s good and solid, bigger than th’ one I lived in at Hogwarts. Th’ rooms are high enough fer me ter stand upright, and wide enough fer me ter turn. Th’ table ‘n chairs are ter small, but I can make some of my own. Storage shelves won’t be a problem either. There’s even a huge bed in th’ bedroom. Mr Fitzroy tells me th’ old gamekeeper made it fer his whole fambly. Well ... Th’ bed looks good ‘n solid anyway, th’ mattress seems ter be aright as well. Th’ Professer will sleep well in it ...

A few shingles on th’ roof will have ter be replaced, but th’ hut’s dry inside and th’ smell’s aright. Mr Fitzroy shows me that there are a few provisions in th’ cupboard his wife insisted on givin’ us: Fruit ‘n vegetables in jars, jam, oatmeal, a smoked sausage and ham, a few fresh eggs, some potatoes. Must visit the Fitzroys soon ter give Mrs Fitzroy me thanks in person ...

I follow th’ Head Gamekeeper inter th’ forest. Nameless Island has a lot of forest, and it’s every bit as dangerous as th’ Ferbidden Forest near Hogwarts. There are deep swamps an’ Slither Trees. They ensnare their prey with their roots an’ branches, close them in and dissolve them. Normally their prey is possibly an unwary owl or bat, badger or rabbit, but th’ skeletons of stags have been found in th’ roots of th’ biggest Slither trees, and they can be dang’rous even ter a man, I’ve read. Then there are caves in th’ forest, full of bats, Mr Fitzroy tells me. Some are singin’ bats, which lure small birds by imitatin’ their songs. They’re th’ only species of bats which aren’t nocturnal. I see spider webs th’ size of a big door. Th’ Head Gamekeeper says th’ biggest spiders are th’ size of a man’s head. They’re rather aggressive, and many woodsmen have bin bitten. Th’ bite doesn’t kill a grown man, but it makes ‘em ill fer weeks, if th’ antidote ‘gainst th’ venom isn’t administered quickly. There are snakes, colourful as a rainbow, the Vielfarbs. They’re harmless, but the White’s venom’s deadly. Much more pleasant are th’ Tree Rollers, if yeh leave them alone. Many people say they’re not pretty wi’ their big fangs and th’ black, scruffy fur, but I dare ter argue. Fierce creatures are the Fanged Deer. They prey on wolves and lynxes.

I spot a four-eared hare and one of th’ little blue-winged horses which have their nests high up in th’ giant old trees. And th’ dragons. Nameless Island Firebreathers, relatives of th’ Oriental Firebreathers. Lots of int’resting animals diff’rent from th’ones I’m familiar with.

Then the Head Gamekeeper ... From what he says, he seems ter be full of disgust fer th’ Centaurs, Werewolves, Veelas, and Water People, th’ Fauns, Lamias and th’ other “half-creatures”. He makes it clear that he hasn’t come ter Nameless Island as one of these “scum-of-th’-earth convicts”. But should he be ill, or one of his fambly, wouldn’t he go ter th’ hospital, where th’ Head Docter is a Centaur? Wouldn’t he take a potion a “scum-of-th’-earth” former convict Potions Master has brewed? I suspect he went ter Nameless Island ‘cause it’s difficult fer him ter get along wi’ people in general ... He’s good wi’ th’ animals, though, from what I see. Strokes Fang’s head ‘fore we part ... Well, I’ll meet him prob’ly once a week, and I’ll do me work as usual, otherwise I’ll be polite ...

 

*****  
I have barely finished cleaning the floor, the shelves and worktables, the cauldrons, beakers, bottles and ladles, putting everything in order, when Hagrid knocks on the doorframe ... Oh yes, he said something about collecting me at eight. I notice that it has become dark outside ... the time has passed so quickly ... Apparently the man at the gate has been ordered to let Hagrid pass. He has come to take me home ... Home ... how strange the word sounds to me ... 

Tomorrow, I will have to take stock of the basic ingredients and to ask Dr Evans which potions will be needed foremost ... I notice how tired I am ... So I follow Hagrid through the still busy streets, out of town, into the forest. Our destination is a spacious hut, not unlike the one Hagrid lived in at Hogwarts. He has been busy: the big kitchen looks freshly cleaned, a lot of firewood is piled up in a corner, his tools are on the shelves, Fang’s enormous basket stands close to the oversized armchair Hagrid brought along. It is covered in blankets. Everything looks cosy ... At Hogwarts, I had such an armchair, and in few, rare moments, I took the time to sit there with a book ...

Fang sniffs my robes and wags his tail. He seems happy to see me ... Quickly, Hagrid lights a fire and begins to prepare some food. Apparently, his employer’s wife has brought over some fresh provisions. I make a mental note that should she ever be in need of a potion or salve, I will provide it for her ... My impression may be formed too rashly, but it seems as if the people on Nameless Island care for each other ...

I do not eat much, but I am grateful for a bit of hot food in my stomach and some herbal tea from Hagrid’s stocks now ... What should I call him? My host? My companion? I look at him ... perhaps I try to solve the enigma why he cares whether I live or die ... He is built like a bear, with a massive, squat body. His shoulders are enormous, his arms and hands stronger than those of any man ... His big head fits his body, though ... I never thought of this before, but he certainly presents an impressive picture ... Strange thoughts again ... 

I am startled from my reveries by Hagrid clearing the table. I want to help him clean up, but he insists that I sit in the armchair next to the fire and rest. At first I am angry. During my last months in Azkaban, my health improved enough: something to eat from time to time, some clothing and a few blankets, no “tests” and “examinations”, no “interrogations” or “performances”, no Dementors – I am no longer an invalid, for Merlin’s sake! But then the long day takes its toll, and, grateful for the warmth and the rest, I nod off in the armchair over my second cup of tea.

Someone touches me, and for a moment I think I am in the cold, wet darkness again ... A huge figure hovering over me ... I recognise Hagrid, and there is no darkness. Only the soft glow of the fire ...

“Time ter go ter bed, Professer,” he says, and I follow him into the room behind the kitchen ... The bed ... The huge bed ... Was it for hours? For days ...? The Dementors had sucked away all hope; the interrogator had violently torn memories out of my head so I could no longer think coherently – it was the time of the “performances”, before I became too mad, too dirty and disgusting even for this ... The bed ... The huge bed ... I am a whore, they paint my face, dress me into women’s clothing they think a whore should wear ... chain me to the huge bed and rape me – again and again – hours? Days? I do not remember ... I deserve it, deserve that I am choking on their seed, gasping for air, crying, begging them to stop ... They bring the boy ... Goyle ... Merlin, he is a mislead child! I deserve this, but not the boy ...! They force another potion down my throat, and I rape him ... again ... again ... again ... I do not want to, I swear, but I cannot fight against the potion ... They clap, whistle, and shout ... I hear screams. Rough, keening screams ... Large, strong hands hold my upper arms ... I hear a deep voice over the screams, worried, urgent: “What is it, Professer? Fer Merlin’s sake, what is it, Sev’rus?!”

The screaming stops ... only now I realise that it was me who was screaming ... I try to tell Hagrid, to explain, but I am not sure whether I am not babbling incoherent gibberish ...

 

*****  
Ev’rythin’ goes well on our first ev’nin’ tergether until I’ve prepared th’ bed fer th’ Professer and show it ter him ... Fer a moment, I’m jes’ standin’ as if some’un had hit me over th’ head with a log when he begins ter scream, starin’ at th’ bed with horror in his eyes ... Dug out a unicorn from a patch of quicksand once ... it had the same look in its eyes ... I take Sev’rus by th’ shoulders, speak ter him ... and he clings ter me like a drownin’ man and stammers somethin’ ... Sounds like “They were no better than we’ve been – the Death Eaters ... Give the boy a sentence, but keep him out of this! Do what you want with me, but leave him ...”

I lead him back ter th’ big room, ‘cause it’s obviously th’ bed drivin’ him crazy ... What’s he saying about a boy? What did they do ter him, fer Merlin’s sake, involvin’ a boy? – Come ter think of it, I don’t want ter know ... Not really. Makes me want ter kill some ministry officials ... Thanks ter Ares Irons they can no longer hurt people now, but when I see what they did ter Sev’rus ... That wasn’t questionin’ a pris’ner, that was torture ... Lupin was right ...

I hold Sev’rus in me arms. Thank Merlin he calms down after a while ... I’d like ter tell him he’s me Sev’rus and no one will ever hurt him again, but I don’t dare ... He ... I feel a lot fer him, and that makes me body react ... Can’t let him notice sech a thin’ after what they must’ve done ter him. Damn! I want him ... but it can’t be ...

 

*****  
Hagrid leads me back to the kitchen ... It’s much better not to see the bed anymore ... He holds me in his arms, and I calm down ... I am ashamed ... I used to be strong enough to bear pain and horror alone ... I am grateful, though, for Hagrid’s help ... On the other hand ... I cannot upset him with such spectacular behaviour. He works hard and will need his sleep at night ... It might be alright if I stay away from the bed ... but what if I’ll have nightmares? I had them at Azkaban, woke up screaming sometimes. If I slept at the hospital, I would disturb the patients ... The only solution will be to brew a strong sleeping draught I’ll take before retiring for the night ... Ravendale ... His “games” and “performances” are in my head, as he told me ... And yet, there are gaps in my memory – and then something sends me screaming like a madman ...

Hagrid is still holding me .... How do I deserve so much care? It will become too much for him soon enough ...

 

*****  
He’s asleep now, Merlin be thanked. I managed ter calm him down. He urged me ter go ter bed, so I did. Goodness, he frightened me when he started screamin’ like a banshee ... They must’ve hurt him no end ... If I ever find out who of Crouch’s minions hurt him ... Nah, this won’t make anythin’ better fer Sev’rus ... Should focus on what’ll make things better fer him ... And this’ll also include not ter let him know I’m attracted ter him – that way ... 

 

*****  
Things settle down a bit during the next few days. Spending my nights in the armchair, I find a few hours of sleep. 

Our provisions seem to vanish in a mysterious way. Hagrid says something about a creature from the woods and nails up a hole in the ceiling of the storage room. Our provisions – ham, bacon, a loaf of cheese, bread – still vanish entirely or are at least nibbled at. From the creature’s appetite and judging from its teeth marks, it must be larger than a rat. It also might be more than one creature. I suggest a trap in which at least one of our mysterious visitors could be caught without harm. Hagrid however prefers to stay awake, watching the storage room. During the second night he is successful. 

I have retired to the armchair, and, awaken from a doze, hear Hagrid exclaim: “Hah, thought as much, yeh come in by way of th’ loose floorboard – Now – hey -!”

I see a black shape, the size of a cat, run towards me from the storage room. In a reflex movement, I reach for my wand – forgetting for a moment that I no longer possess one - but the black shadow has already jumped up onto my knees and has put its forepaws on my chest. I hear Hagrid come from the storage room, ready to snatch the creature away. Fang, the great hero, chaser of rabbits, is nowhere to be seen. I am face to face with the creature. Yellow eyes with slit pupils stare at me from a blunt round head with enormous jaws. A flat black nose sniffs my face. The jaws open – and a big tongue licks my nose fiercely. 

I admit, I do not look very intelligent at the moment, and I am positively stunned when the creature determinedly curls up in my lap. Before I know what I am doing, I have stretched out a finger and scratch the creature behind one of its small rounded ears. It purrs. 

Hagrid relaxes and chuckles softly. The animal delights him, of course. I am more stunned than frightened, because everything happened so fast. I find my voice again.

“Hagrid,” I whisper, “what creature is this?”

Hagrid chuckles again. A deep, pleasant sound ...

“Tha’s a Nameless Island Tree Roller,” he says. “Must’ve bin hibernatin’, sleepin’ under th’ hut, and we woke him up. Seems ter be rather tame, accustomed to humans. Maybe th’ former gamekeeper kept him as a pet, or one of th’ Fitzroy children.”

The creature in my lap is already asleep. The purr definitely has become a snore. Hagrid is right in stating that this Tree Roller must be accustomed to humans.

“Seems ter like yeh, Professer.”

Another point for Hagrid. Generally, animals do not like me, and some of them with good reason, when I kill one of their species from time to time for my potions. As a child, I never had a familiar like the other children. Where to keep it? It would not have been a problem at Hogwarts, but during the holidays – my permanently drunken father would have killed it, and my mother was too ill to care ...

I stroke the round head. The fur is rough and coarse, but well groomed. The creature is fearsome, with three rows of fangs and sheathed claws like a cat. It feels warm and alive, and obviously my lap is a good sleeping place for it ... peaceful ... I rest my head against the back of the armchair and close my eyes ...

 

*****  
Well, that was a serprise, wi’th’ wee feller jumpin’ on th’ Professer’s lap, ter be sure. It’s half tamed it seems, and it seems ter like Sev’rus ...

I leave him, tucked inter th’ armchair, a blanket round his shoulders, another round his legs, th’ Tree Roller sleepin’ in his lap. I put another log on th’ fire.

 

*****  
Days pass ... They have a regularity long unknown, which helps me to keep my balance ... Through the daily walks from the hut in the forest to the hospital and back, my body has become stronger ... My mental health – well, there are days when a knock on the door of Hagrid’s hut, a step in the corridor outside my laboratory at the hospital send me into panic ... Then I think they have come for another interrogation or another “game”. There are days when I can barely do my work, because a terrible fear grasps me, throwing me down ... nights where I wake screaming ...

And still Hagrid puts up with all this ... His strong, soothing presence is the reason for the nights I rest fairly well – apart from the sleeping draughts I brew for myself.

The Tree Roller has become a part of our small community. For some reason it has taken to me, lying round my shoulders like a fur coat, licking my ear or nose, or sleeping in my lap at night. Hagrid wonders why it does not hibernate, but all my scanning gives no hint at an animagus ... I try to find a special book about Tree Rollers now. I miss the extensive library at Hogwarts ...

To show his affection, the Tree Roller kills rats, drags their bloody carcasses in and deposits them adoringly at my feet or in my lap. We call it Freddy, because in a corner of my jumbled memories, I remember how, during my early years as at teacher at Hogwarts, some of the seven-year boys discussed a Muggle movie they had seen during the holidays. Apparently, the story revolved around the caretaker of a school, who had murdered children and was killed by their parents, only to return from the dead as a demon, haunting their dreams and waking lives, causing rather gory and violent deaths. The caretaker’s name was Freddy ... So this is how the little monster got its name ... Although our Freddy makes me smile sometimes ... and makes me feel better ...

 

*****  
Winter has come in earnest now. Th’ Professer has his good and his bad days. I admire his strength ... Have taken up ter write ter Professer Lupin, though, ‘cause sum’times I don’t know any longer how ter help Sev’rus ... Really don’t want ter go behind his back, but what ter do when he’s got his restless days, and no calming potion or sleepin’ draught seems ter have any effect? I don’t want ter ask Docter Evans, ‘cause Sev’rus works fer him ... Professer Lupin tells me what I describe is normal with people who’ve bin tortured. He writes that it is a good thing fer people ter take couns’ling in sech circumstances, which is speaking about things with a docter or a healer, but knowin’ th’ stubborn Potions Master, we both agree it’ll be better never ter mention this word in his presence ... What I didn’t write Professer Lupin are me true feelins fer Sev’rus, and that they include me body ... I really don’t want ter make matters heavier fer Sev’rus than they already are ...

Me work goes well. Of course, it’s nothin’ new ter me, I’ve bin doin’ this line o’ work since I was no longer allowed ter go ter Hogwarts, and Professer Dumbledore helped me ter come back as a gamekeeper ... 

Now, in winter time, a lot of th’ creatures are hibernatin’. I wonder why Freddy the Tree Roller doesn’t. Spoke about it wi’ Sev’rus, and I was serprised that he shows real interest. ‘Cause he wants ter find me a book. What I think is tha’, with many animals, hibernatin’ serves ter protect them against th’ cold of winter. As Freddy has taken ter livin’ with us and no longer in th’ forest, he’s got no need fer hibernatin’. 

B’sides Sev’rus, me, Fang, and Freddy, our little fambly at th’ moment includes Lupita, a Black Snake, and Esme, a Fanged Doe. Sev’rus likes ter watch Lupita when she comes out at night. We’ve got ter be a bit careful, cause Freddy tends ter get jealous. He goes on well with Fang, though. After a wild fight one ev’nin’, they seem ter have come ter a kinda truce.

Mr Fitzroy is not an easy man ter work with, but most of th’ time he leaves me alone when he’s satisfied himself I’m doin’ me work properly. Mrs Fitzroy is a good soul. Twice she came fer a visit and brought a cake and a wonderful pie. Even Sev’rus seems ter like her ... When she mentioned that two of th’ children had a cold, he brought her a bottle of cough syrup and some of his helpful chest liniment. Mrs Fitzroy told me later he would not hear of a thank you, jes’ gave her a strange look and left. She was a bit upset, thinkin’ she had offended him in some way. I told her not ter be worried about his forbearin’ manners. She had done nothin’ wrong, it was jes’ his nature. Mrs Fitzroy seems ter understand now that deep inside, he’s not a bad soul ...

 

*****  
Sometimes I still cannot grasp that I am brewing potions again. This is what I really do best. “Playing with my chemistry set,” as Lupin called it, was always what I did best ... It seems, though, that Dr Evans’s decision to employ me as a Potions Master has not gone unchallenged within his staff, as I had expected. Dr Aleister Dorsey, Evans’s second-in-command, never misses an opportunity to speak or act against me ... They came to inspect me, Dorsey, a middle-aged, tall wizard, friendly to my face; the two younger doctors, Dr Ichabod Crane and Dr Freya Greyback, more reluctant. I was not prepared to meet anyone, not prepared to talk ... In mid-sorting and cleaning, most probably looking dishevelled, muttering to myself, I must have presented the perfect image of a half-mad convict. It surely did not help that I first recoiled like a wild animal and then went at them, ordering them to leave – and not in a polite way ... I am sorry about what happened, but I did not want to be stared at like an animal at a menagerie ...

Later that day, I meet Dr Crane in the little herb garden behind the laboratory. There is not much to find now, but I want to take stock which plants are growing there. He apologises for disturbing me and shows that he knows a few things about herbs ... Pleasant enough. There is no falseness in him, and behind the shyness and insecurity of a young man, I sense a great inner strength ...

Making acquaintances and friends easily, chatting to a lot of people, Hagrid soon knows more about the doctors at the hospital than I do. Neither of them has been a convict: Freya Greyback actually is Fenrir’s daughter, and she went away to escape her father’s influence. Crane apparently has a lot of new ideas and seems to be a bit of a rebel; at St Mungo’s they sent him away to cool his heels on Nameless Island. Whether they did this to put the young doctor to the test, or because he jarred their temper and they wanted to get rid of him, Hagrid cannot say. It seems, though, that he really cares to help the patients, whereas Dorsey just speaks against every decision Dr Evans takes, evades every order Evans gives him ... And apparently he also looks down on the convicts and the “half-creatures”, who make up the bulk of the people on Nameless Island. Here it is not so much the question of pureblood, half-blood or Muggle born, but of being a convict banished to Nameless Island, being not entirely of human origin; or having come here as a free man and being entirely human ... I do no longer care about such things ... A half-giant and a werewolf thought of me when everybody else hoped I’d be buried in Azkaban forever ...

Freya Greyback approaches me a few days later, very politely. She speaks openly about her lycanthrophy, and asks me how to proceed about the Wolfsbane Potion she needs: Should she brew it herself? She tells me she has done so in the past, but admits freely that she has not been completely happy with the results. I tell her I can make it for her, but if she prefers to do it herself, she would be welcome to use the laboratory. I am interested. She would be the first werewolf being able to brew her own medicine ... but she seems glad about my offer ... and strangely, I am glad about her trust...  
With Dorsey I can deal. I have been accustomed to people disliking me since I was old enough to notice, and I learned to use this to my advantage. Dorsey’s hostility helps me to focus, to concentrate on my work, to give him no opportunity of setting me into a bad light ... I never fight him actively, though, I never attack him ... I have to keep my thoughts on my work ... Brewing potions demands all my attention – composing the ingredients, put them on the heat or take them off at the right moment, stir them at the exact minute and in the right direction, say the right words at the right time ...

 

*****  
One evenin’, Sev’rus comes home jes’ when Esme, th’ Fanged Doe wi’ th’ hurt leg, is about ter give birth ter her baby. Th’ young one isn’t lying right, so we’ve got ter pull it out. I can’t do that alone, so Sev’rus enters th’ stable jes at th’ right moment. He knows I can be found here when I’m not at th’ hut. He’s better with most animals than I’d ever thought, and he’s helped me a few times already, so I ask him ter hold Esme’s head while I try ter get her young one out. Without a word, he does what I ask of him. I have muzzled her so she can’t bite, but he’s got ter hold her steady, and she’s bin in labour fer a few hours now. Sev’rus knows what ter do ... seems he’s better with animals than with people ... He hums ter th’ doe soothingly, strokin’ her long head, scratchin’ her between th’ little horns on her forehead. Her flanks are heavin’, her fine reddish fur wi’ th’ black stripes is matted ... Hope I can get out th’ young one soon ... Her openin’s wide enough. Carefully, I reach in an’ try ter turn the li’l one. Helpin’ an animal ter give birth is always tricky, because not all animals react well ter soothin’ and calmin’ spells or potions. Fanged Deer don’t.

I manage ter find li’l hooves and legs ... It’s difficult ter use strenght and ter be careful at th’ same time ... Yeh can’t do magic on a Fanged Doe in this state ... 

Now I’ve got a grip on th’ young ... Esme grunts in pain, tries ter rear up and ter kick backward like a mare ... Sev’rus holds her head and manages ter calm her down again, but I've lost me grip ... Carefully, I try again, and this time, Esme’s pushing helps. Th’ young is facin’ inter th’ right direction now. Esme pushes, breathin’ in ragged gasps. One good thing: She didn’t go down when she put her weight on her injured leg. Th’ young one’s head’s come out now, tergether with th’ li’l forelegs. I help tearin’ away th’ protectin’ skin around th’ li’l one’s head. Esme stands pantin’,exhausted. Sev’rus is strokin’ her forehead.

“Once more, Esme,” he says, “one more push ...”

Esme seems ter gather her strength, pushes – an’ there’s th’ li’l one. I push away more of th’ protectin’ skin. Th’ young has already taken its first gaspin’ breath. It tries ter scramble up already. Sev’rus takes off Esme’s muzzle and releases her head. Immediately, she turns around and starts ter nuzzle and lick her young. Shakily, it stands on its spindly legs, seeks fer a teat. It begins ter drink greedily. I’m relieved. Sometimes, Fanged Does reject their young when a human has touched it ter help wi’ th’ birth. Well, I’m only half-human, maybe that helped ...

I turn ter Sev’rus, who’s standin’ next ter me, his hair hangin’ in his face. When he’s standing like this, he’s deeply upset, tryin’ not ter show it. When he’s in sech a state, it’s best ter do as if nothin’ was th’ matter, until he comes out with what’s botherin’ him ...

“Well, it’s a li’l buck,” I say. “How would yeh like ter name him?”

“Lucius,” he answers, absentmind’ly, withou’ lookin’ up.

“Lucius?!” I exclaim. Esme turns in alarm. Thank Merlin she calms down again quickly, when Sev’rus takes up his hummin’ again. The li’l buck is ter busy with drinkin’ ter care much. 

“Erm – well,” I mumble, “so Lucius it is.”

Not that I like that name. Th’ only Lucius I ever knew was Lucius Malfoy, and he’s always bin one of th’ few people I could never stand ... That man had ev’rythin’ in th’ world: A beautiful wife, a healthy son, more galleons at Gringotts yeh could ever imagine, an infl’ential post at th’ Ministry – and he wasted his time on hatin’ everyone who wasn’t a pureblood. Him and his wife, who’s no better, poisoned their son’s mind, helped Voldemort poison th’ minds of others ... Perhaps he didn’t know better, havin’ bin spoilt himself from an early age. From when he’d become a student at Hogwarts, he’s used others fer his purposes ... He managed ter get Professer Dumbledore pushed away from his post as th’ Headmaster at Hogwarts – if only fer a while ...

I notice that Sev’rus has lifted his head and is lookin’ at me. Me face must give away a lot of me thoughts ... 

“Before I came into the stable, I read the letter I found on the kitchen table. It is from Draco Malfoy. He has been at St Mungo’s to identify his father’s dead body.”

I’m taken aback about th’ news. Didn’t like that letter at all ... From th’ look of it, it hadn’t taken th’ official way, which leads over th’ Ministry. Never saw it bein’ delivered ...

“But th’ Malfoys have left th’ country years ago!”

“Apparently, Lucius left Azkaban, only to be brought to the dungeons of the Ministry. The family had been told he was dead, public rumour had it that all the Malfoys had left the country. Probably Draco never believed his father was dead, but only with Ares Irons becoming Governor of Azkaban, his letters to learn his father’s whereabouts were taken notice of. In the dungeons of the Ministry an unknown prisoner had been found a few years ago. He bore the Dark Mark, identifying him as a Death Eater, but they could not find out more about his identity. His mind was gone, and he had the appearance of a man well into the second or third decade of his hundreds. So no one at first linked the unknown old man to Lucius Malfoy.”

“But he was Malfoy, I s’pose. Does Draco say how they found out?”

Now I understand. Sech a letter can’t take th’ official route. But why by Salazar’s Beard does Draco turn ter Sev’rus? What does he want of him?

“Lucius had a rare illness which only befalls purebloods,” Sev’rus continues. “Morbus Deteriorans. If people who suffer from it do not take a certain potion, the Renovate, every day, they will age rapidly. It is important that the Renovate be taken regularly.”

“And if someone can’t take this potion reg’larly fer a time and then takes it again, will he become better?”

Sev’rus shakes his head.

“His outward appearance may become younger again, but the damage to his inner organs, possibly also his mental capacities, will be permanent. Apparently one of the mediwizards or witches at St Mungo’s knew about Morbus Deteriorans. Administering the Renovate Potion for a few days would enable them to recognise Lucius Malfoy in the unknown Death Eater.”

Suddenly I feel very cold. I shudder. 

“And does Draco say he knows how his father died?”

“Most probably,” Sev’rus answers, “the burden of the sped up ageing process together with the – harsh – conditions in the dungeons of the Ministry proved too much for him. Perhaps even the Renovate Potion administered after so long a period of deprivation proved too much for his system.”

His voice’s matter-of-fact, as if it didn’t affect him, but I can see his hands which have gripped th’ collar of his robe as if he wanted ter tear it. 

“D’yeh think they didn’t give him th’ potion on purpose at th’ Ministry?”

Sev’rus nods.

“Not many people knew about his condition. Narcissa may have known and may have provided the potion as long as she could. When the Renovate was no longer supplied, the ageing process set in, and someone must have guessed ... The Renovate also did not work in Azkaban ...” He looks at me. His eyes are full of pain.

“Together ... together with the other conditions in the dungeons ... a very unpleasant prospect ...”

“Maybe,” I say, “sometimes they would give it ter him, sometimes they wouldn’t.”

He nods. “Probably.”

It’s dastardly. I mean, he was a Death Eater and all, but with what Sev’rus has shown me, and what I can guess from his panic attacks and nightmares, I believe that they treated Malfoy in a very nasty way as well. And then, where’s th’ diff’rence ter what th’ Death Eaters did?

“Draco thinks the same,” Sev’rus says. He must’ve read me thoughts ...

“But why does he turn ter yeh?”

Sev’rus shrugs. 

“Perhaps because as his former teacher, I still am the one for him to turn to. Perhaps I am the only person he trusts. Or because as a convict myself, a close friend of his father and a former Death Eater, I am the most probable person to take any interest in this matter at all ...” He sounds bitter.

“And what will yeh do?”

He does not answer me.

 

*****  
The name slipped off my tongue before I could curb myself. Hagrid shrugs his mighty shoulders and mumbles his agreement, but his face clearly shows that he is not very happy with my choice. He does not like to be reminded of Lucius Malfoy, and he has no reason to like him ... Nor do I, coming to think of it ... Not much ... And yet ...

Hagrid asks me what I intend to do ... Preferably nothing, but I will try to contact Ares Irons in the same way as Draco reached me. Maybe he knows already about the unknown old man’s true identity, maybe it was even he who contacted Draco ... Or it was a well-meaning ministry official ...

Something else than Lucius’s unpleasant fate seems to be on Hagrid’s mind. He does not look at me, neither at the Fanged Doe or her young, but stares at the straw on the stable floor. His hands have gripped the bars of the paddock so tightly that I fear he might break them.

“T’was him made yeh join th’ Death Eaters! Th’ two of yeh were very close durin’ his last year,” he says eventually. “Is it –?” he manages, finally looking at me, “Are yeh still –?”

Though it is none of his business actually, he is right to ask ... Time I should lay my mixed feelings for Lucius Malfoy to rest ...

 

*****  
I’m upset. And jealous, too. I could kick meself, though, fer askin’ Sev’rus things which are none of me business. I jes open me mouth ter apologise, when he begins ter speak.

“Yes, there was a time, when ...”

He stops, breathes deeply.

“I was very lonely,” he then says brusquely. He turns and makes fer th’door.

“Professer Snape! Sev’rus!”

He doesn’t listen. Brushes past me and leaves th’ stable in a run. I hurry after him, but he’s halfway down th’ path which heads ter th’ sea. Better not ter run after him now, I decide, and maybe it’s wrong ... Inwardly I curse meself and me big mouth, as well as Draco Malfoy fer writin’ th’ damned letter. Jes when I thought Sev’rus had calmed down a bit ...

 

*****  
I have killed and killed and killed again ... Had to ... It was murder ... even if it ended unnameable pain sometimes ... And in the end, it was my own choice to become a murderer, a Death Eater, though Lucius prepared the path ...

I do not wish to remember, but the memory is there, unwanted, unbidden. The memory of a deeply confused sixteen-year-old. Perhaps it had begun even earlier, the night the Marauders lured me to the Shrieking Shack ... Or the night Black raped me ... After they found me wandering the school grounds at night, again, I was called to the Headmaster’s office. Dumbledore was present as well. I told them nothing, closed up my mind ... They would have said it was a lie anyway ... Who would want to touch greasy, ugly Snape? 

It was then I began to perfect my mask ... Quiet, except in class; keeping to myself, avoiding the Marauders; trying not to get hexed and not to hex back too much ... The Dark Arts were fascinating ... if I studied them, perhaps I could get my revenge someday? Or perhaps ... perhaps I could find something in these books which would not make my words come out so mean, if I did not really want them to be mean? Perhaps ... perhaps I could make someone like me? Not by some stupid love potion, but in a more subtle way? I wanted power for revenge, I wanted friendship, even love, perhaps ... Sixteen-year-old Severus Snape really was a pathetic little git ... 

At sixteen, I was unable to see Dumbledore’s genuine worry. To me, he was merely one of these grown-ups trying to gain my trust, only to laugh behind my back together with his precious Marauders ... Or Slughorn with his Slug Club ... He had found me at the lake, had given me detention as my House Teacher, and had safely gone back to ignoring me again ... After all, I was just a filthy Half-Blood, barely tolerated in Slytherin ... And from a poor family at that. I had to be careful not only about the Marauders ... It was much more dangerous to get in the way of Prefect Lucius Malfoy and his entourage: Evan Rosier, Walden MacNair, Victor Crabbe and Vincent Goyle ... I had seen them at work. It was a mixture of bullying, threats, hexes and curses of the meaner sort, undermining a victim’s dignity, credibility, and nerves ... Rosier just watched; Crabbe and Goyle did the dirty work; MacNair was a real sadist. And Lucius Malfoy, the King of Slytherin, ordered them about ... He was beautiful, perfect, with his proud features, the flaxen hair and grey eyes; tall, slender and graceful. Besides, he was the heir of one of the richest and oldest pureblood families in the country ... 

I thought he was bored when he deigned to speak to me. Alone. I was sceptical when he told me he had noticed that I was excellent in Potions and Defence Against the Dark Arts, and he wanted to study with me. Nevertheless, I agreed. Better to be on his good side ... 

I could hardly believe my ears when he made a pass at me ... Lucius Malfoy, who could have almost everyone in Slytherin or from the other houses, should choose me? At first, I thought it was a mean prank. Then, well, perhaps he might want someone ugly for a change? I expected a quick shag in the dark, and he treated me like a prince ... Right from the beginning, though, I knew he was an experienced performer. He did not really care for me as a person, but I was hungry and lonely, and I took what I could get ... So many new and wonderful sensations ... He also introduced me to a friend of his family, Lord Voldemort ... a friendly Gentleman ... They spun their nets ... 

Lucius confided in me about his illness, and I was glad to be able to brew the Renovate Potion for him ... Voldemort played the fatherly friend, finding out about my interest in the Dark Arts ... the trap snapped shut, and I became a member of the secret order of the Death Eaters ...

I had no qualms then about eliminating all Muggles and Muggle friends ... My Muggle father had only beaten me, as long as I had been too small and too weak to fight back, the same applied to the Muggle kids in the slums where I grew up ... When my mother was not too ill, she taught me spells, hexes, jinxes, and curses to survive ... She made it clear that they were for protection only, and I was not to attack Muggles ... However, it was too temping to be the chaser, not the chased, for a change ... When I realised what I was actually doing, I was horrified ... Sick to the death ... 

They made clear very quickly, though, that they would not let me go ... I appeased them by doing everything they demanded of me ... Then I fled to Dumbledore ... and agreed to what he asked of me : Returning to Voldemort as a spy ... becoming the most hated teacher at Hogwarts, haunted by my own demons ...

What shall I do, Draco? Your father is dead, and I protected you, pleading an unbreakable vow to your mother ... What do you want of me now? Leave me alone. I am a convict myself, pardoned to lifelong banishment, barely clinging to the few shreds of sanity I have regained ... I do not want to hear anything again of the time I shared with your father. What do you want of me? What could I do? You’ve got the wrong man, young Mr Malfoy ... I never was a servant of your family ... Where were you, when I was tried?

I walk along the shore first, then I turn back to town. My mind is still turning frantically ... Ravendale ... Ravendale must have noticed the sped up ageing process and must have seen an exquisite possibility for one of his sadistic games ... 

I cannot help laughing aloud. Even if I spoke to Ares Irons, how to prove my hunch that Matthew Ravendale was responsible for your father’s suffering and death? It might focus his attention more on what was going on when Ravendale was responsible for the prisoners kept at the Ministry ...

My wanderings have led me back to the door of Hagrid’s hut. I hope that Hagrid will be asleep already, but he is still awake ...

 

*****  
When I see Sev’rus come in, I’m very much relieved. I had bin worried, ‘cause he had bin so upset and had stormed off ... I wouldn’t have wanted ter run after him, though ... Needed his space ter get his mind clear over Malfoy, he probably did ... He must have loved th’ man, maybe loves him still ... Lookin’ back, I remember how Sev’rus changed when he joined th’ group round Malfoy ... He’d bin almost dirty, his hair unkempt and real greasy ... Some animals don’t groom themselves anymore when they’re ill ... Sev’rus ‘d bin like this ... and then he changed, looked more after his clothes, his hair was freshly washed and cut, he moved diff’rently ... got this elegant, glidin’ way of movin’, which slowly comes back ter him now ... ‘T was Malfoy brought this out in him, ter be sure ... But he became real cruel and mean too, from what I heard ... ‘T was Malfoy twisted his mind ... but also th’ people who had bin shunnin’ Sev’rus, shuttin’ him out ... In th’ end, though, it was his own choices ...

Sev’rus looks at me ... His face’s calm, but there’s fear in his eyes. He’s terribly upset, I can feel it ... Doesn’t want ter show it, but he fears fer his mind ... Damn, jes when I thought he was becomin’ a bit more stable ... Would like ter, but can’t touch him at th’ moment ... when he appears calm but is really restless and upset, he might lash out like a nervous Hippogryff.

I act as if nothin’ out of th’ ordinary had happened and manage ter calm him down, get him ter take his sleepin’ potion.

“It must have been horrible,” he says, absentmind’ly strokin’ th’ Tree Roller, which has settled in his lap. “When he was still kept at the Ministry, Narcissa must have supplied the Renovate ... But then she fled ... When I took the Unbreakable Vow to protect Draco, I knew she had given up on seeing Lucius again ...” 

He begins ter laugh, and it makes me shudder. 

“What a way to perish ... Old age creeping in prematurely ... The Dementors eating away all thoughts of glory and beauty, leaving only horror and despair ...”

What shall I do? Tell him he shouldn’t think about it ter much, ‘cause it doesn’t help Malfoy any more? 

I’m happy Sev’rus has settled down in th’ armchair by th’ fire. He drifts off ter sleep. A few hours later, he wakes up screamin’ from a nightmare. Again, I manage ter calm him down ... And curse it, I’m gettin’ a hard-on when I hold him in me lap ... I don’t want ter bother him with sech matters ... He’s got trouble enough ... But he seems ter have come ter a decision what ter do ...

 

*****  
It would have been impossible not to notice Hagrid’s erection ... But he cannot actually find me attractive ... I feel nothing ... He could use my body, though, if he wanted. I would not mind ... So many people used my body for their pleasure during the last years without ever asking, and I could not prevent it ... I know Hagrid would not hurt me, never hurt me ... However, in the end it would be better if he found someone he could have real pleasure with ... someone who could give back the gentleness he deserves ...

I write a letter to Ares Irons, which I then burn, spraying a few drops of Reinstate Potion into the flames. It was this way Draco contacted me, and it assures that Irons will get my letter, even if there are still people at the Ministry who would try to keep the circumstances of Lucius Malfoy’s death hidden from him. 

This is all I can do for your son ... Farewell, Lucius ...

Life goes on. Spring is not too far away now, and Hagrid says Freddy will soon leave to find himself a mate. My idea is that he should follow the Tree Roller’s example, but I keep this thought to myself ...

Esme has begun to push away little Lucius when he tries to drink. Her leg has healed well, so we set them free. It is a misty, overcast morning. Esme leaves the outside paddock a bit hesitantly, whereas Lucius, who has become a strong little fellow, is off into the underbrush in a flash. The irregular patches in different shades of black and brown on his fur provide a perfect camouflage. Esme flits her ears, turns her head towards us one last time and follows her son into the forest. 

At the hospital, I mostly keep to myself, brew my potions, stir up my salves and liniments. The laboratory is well stocked with ingredients now, even rarer ones. Dr Evans submits all of my requests to the funding committee, and they allow even the more expensive ingredients. I keep my requests within reason, though, because I know the hospital does not have the funds for Earthworm Saliva or the twenty-seventh leg of the Metaphylician Centipede ... though they would not be amiss in improving the Os Solidum Draught against osteoporosis ...

At night, I am back to the bed in the dungeons of the Ministry ... Too often ... too often ... Goyle ... They took him away, I remember that much ... but then there is a blank... A gaping hole in my memories ... No word from Irons ... but then, I don’t expect any ... It will not be easy to get any proof against Matthew Ravendale ... 

 

*****  
He’s got his good days and he’s got his bad days, Sev’rus has. I’ve never thought it would be easy ter go ter Nameless Island and live with him here. It’ll take a long time ter heal a person as has bin tortured – if that’s at all possible. I’m glad I can pervide safety an’ comfort he answers to ... I’d never strive fer more ... That would be askin’ ter much of some’un’s bin raped and hurt ... I know, though, I’ll want only him ... And as that cannot be, I’ve got two healthy hands ter take care of me need ... He trusts me, and Merlin knows, it was difficult enough ter get him there ... How could I bother him wi’ th’ needs of me body? It’s enough ter watch him become stronger, ter see him smile a bit sometimes, on a good day ...

And then th’ Black Gull arrives wi’th letter.

 

*****  
When I come home and find Freddy hissing at the giant black bird perched on the back of Hagrid’s chair, greedily gobbling up the fish Rubeus has provided, my first thought is that Irons has answered my letter. And indeed, the small tube at the gull’s leg contains a letter bearing Ares Irons’s seal ...

I wonder about the gull. But Irons will have his reasons for using the normal channel of communication. I scan the scroll with a few spells. It seems genuine enough, so I open it:

“Azkaban, March 17th

Professor Snape,

Your expertise in regard to cursed objects is urgently needed. Meet me in London on March 20th. Transport will be provided. I await your answer.

Ares Irons”

What is he playing at, summoning me to London? Is this a trap? Is this message genuine? A reaction to my letter? What does it imply? My opinion on a cursed object, or the long and complicated process of breaking the curse as well? What is it Ares Irons does not mention?

I can find nothing wrong with the letter, so I believe it is genuine. What choice do I have? I shall go, of course. 

 

*****  
Sev’rus turns very pale when he reads th’ letter. When he’s finished, he’s jes sittin’ there, staring outta th’ window b’hind me ... It’s dark outside, he can’t see a thing ... Seein’ him like this gives me th’ willies ...

He pushes th’ letter over ter me.

“Read it.”

He closes his eyes fer a moment and takes a deep breath.

I read th’ letter, and I know he’ll go ter London. He knows I don’t like it, but I appreciate that he’s taken me inter his confidence ...

“Yeh’ll go,” I say.

He sneers.

“I have accumulated enough debts to pay back for the rest of my life. Had it not been for Ares Irons, I would have perished miserably in a hidden cell in Azkaban ...” He stops, hesitates.

I know he’s bin accustomed ter bearin’ his burdens alone, but I would like ter go with him. I’ve got a feelin’ it could be important ...

Th’ Black Gull, which so far had been occupied with swallowin’ down th’ fish I brought, now screeches noisily fer more.

“Yeh’ve gotten enough,” I say. Th’ gull is not convinced, screeches and flaps its wings. Freddy hisses at him from one of th’ shelves and then jumps up onto one of th’ beams supportin’ th’ roof, hissin’ some more. Fang looks up from his basket and decides ter ignore Freddy as well as th’ gull. 

“Rubeus!” Sev’rus rises his voice over th’ racket. It’s his old voice, th’ voice which could well be heard over th’ noise of a dinin’ hall full of students. Th’ gull stops screechin’ and starts cleanin’ its feathers.

“Rubeus,” Sev’rus repeats, “would you – would you care to – accompany me to London?”

Fer a moment, I jes’ stare at him. Have I heard this right? This is somethin’ new ... Has he got th’ same feelin’ as I have?

He looks down at his hands in his lap, his hair a black veil shadin’ his face ... even more grey in it now ...

“I do not wish to expose you to danger, it is just ...” He pauses.

“I’ve got a feelin’ I wouldn’t be amiss,” I say.

He looks at me again. 

“Exactly.”

“If yeh wish me ter come, I’ll come with yeh,” I assure him. “Jes have ter find someone lookin’ after th’ animals while we’re away. Maybe Jeremy Fitzroy.”

“Mr Fitzroy’s eldest son? Why not? – Well, I will have to speak to Dr Evans, you talk to Mr Fitzroy. Then I will tell Ares Irons to expect us on the given date.”

Sev’rus seems ter have found his strength again ... I’m glad ... Though I’m afraid as well ... Ares Irons wouldn’t summon Sev’rus ter London jes fer a pleasant chat ...

“Rubeus?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

 

*****  
It had been fairly easy to make up my mind to comply with Irons’s wish to see him in London. To admit that I do not quite feel up to whatever Irons’s summons might imply, and to ask Hagrid to accompany me was quite another matter. From my early days I have learned to survive alone. Even the only stable and reliable person during my childhood, Mr Finch, a squib apothecary I used to visit when things became unbearable at home, died before I came to Hogwarts. During long stretches of my life, I had no one to confide in, to find support with – it would have been too dangerous – for the other person as well as for me ... 

Things no longer work the way they used to work ... I was a Slytherin, and Slytherins are survivors. Part of surviving is to face unpleasant facts, to deal with them or live with them. A very unpleasant fact is that my bodily and mental endurance have suffered considerably ... On the other hand, there are Hagrid’s ability and willingness to give support – in almost unlimited capacities, it seems ... 

When I show the Governor’s letter to Dr Evans, he is not pleased. Strangely, not so much because of the work which will remain undone during my absence, but out of concern for my welfare, it seems ... Nameless Island is under the jurisdiction of the Governor of Azkaban, so he has to let me go. He comes up close, and it seems as if he wanted to take me by my shoulders. 

“Take care,” he says.

Hagrid has more difficulties. He cannot reveal his true reason for visiting London, and Mr Fitzroy suspects him of taking days off to have a good time, while he and the other gamekeepers take over his work. I overhear a long and agitated monologue about many citizens complaining about the marauding Eberbachian Hogs which devastate their gardens, and how difficult it will be, with so few people to help, to catch them during the beginning mating fights and to bring them back to the secured areas of woodland where they are normally kept. Even I can see Mr Fitzroy’s point. Eberbachian Hogs are huge, ferocious creatures with voracious appetites. They fly in droves, and where they choose to land and settle down, they can become a plague. Certainly no wizard with his wits about him would think of facing an Eberbachian Boar unarmed. 

Hagrid remains firm, though. He will prepare the areas for the hogs, see to the nets and fences and reinforce them with spells. He has also put together a group of young wizards to help with the chase – but he will go to London. So after another heated argument Mr Fitzroy gives in.

I have informed Ares Irons that I will come, accompanied by Hagrid. Let him do what he wants with this information ...

The next afternoon we have a visitor, a wizard whom I have met once, a long time ago. Dumbledore introduced us. Our visitor looks like a young man in his twenties, strikingly beautiful, with long golden curls and noble features. His robes outdo everything in elegance Gilderoy Lockhart ever wore. His deep blue eyes are much too benign and wise for his young appearance, though. Cedric Lafleur is over two hundred years old, and one of the most accomplished curse breakers in Europe. He is also one of the most accomplished thieves of the wizarding world.

I am bewildered to see him here. If Irons has enlisted Lafleur’s help, what does he need me for? 

I introduce Hagrid and Lafleur briefly. Irons seems to have informed him that Rubeus will accompany us, for he does not object when Hagrid follows us to the beach. 

“We will use a portkey,” Lafleur explains. 

I expected something like this. Normal transportation runs via boat or flying coach. For obvious reasons, no one can apparate or disapparate anywhere on Nameless Island. A portkey has to be brought, time-set and will provide the fastest way of transportation. I wonder where we will go ...

The portkey in question is an unobtrusive piece of driftwood. We hold on to it, and an instant later, we are in a sparsely furnished room: a big table; a few candlesticks with candles; heavy dark green draperies in front of the high windows; a desk in one corner, a few chairs in another; bookshelves lining the walls.

“Welcome.” 

Ares Irons rises from one of the chairs. We must be in his private home, which would be the most logical place, if the matter is not everyday Ministry business ...

As usual, Irons does not waste any time.

“I suggest, Professor Snape, that you take a look at the object in question and determine whether you will be willing to help.”

“I have a question, which I would like to have answered before,” I say. 

“Ask.”

“You summon me here, asking for my opinion on a cursed object, and yet I see Cedric Lafleur at your side, the best curse breaker you could ever find. How does this fit together?”

Ares Irons nods.

“A good question, Professor Snape. The reason is the nature of the object.”

 

*****  
Havin’ watched th’ two wizards closely, I think they are honest with Sev’rus. I trust Guv’nor Irons. What I don’t like, though, is that both men seem genuinely worried about what they want ter ask of Sev’rus – and me, fer that matter ... I think, if Mr Irons had a choice, he wouldn’t involve us ...

I haven’t seen where he took it from, but a wooden chest sits on th’ big table, longer than wide, like one of th’ chests Sev’rus uses ter store little bottles in. It’s made of dark wood, ebony perhaps, and there are inlays of lighter colour, in what looks like ivory and mother of pearl. It looks precious, and th’ inlays are beautifully done, but fer th’ life of me I wouldn’t want ter touch it ... It has a strange feel about it, which puts me off ... Th' inlays form a sort of picter, faces on a kind of pillar. I take a good look at these faces, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want ter see more ...

Sev’rus looks at th’ box. He’s got a look on his face and in his eyes which tells me we’re facin’ something extremely dang’rous ... He had that look on his face back when we both were still at Hogwarts and on a few occasions I ran inter him at night ... Him bein’ probably on a mission fer Professer Dumbledore ...

He looks sharply at Lafleur, who doesn’t look ter well ... there are lines in his face which haven’t bin there before, and he holds on ter his chest, as if in pain ...

“A puzzle box,” Sev’rus finally says. “I have never seen such a large one. How did you come by it?”

“If you recognise a puzzle box, you know the price,” Lafleur lightly says. “Mostly death. In my case ...” He does not finish his sentence

Merlin, he’s losin’ his youthful appearance ... I see Ares Irons throw him a worried look. Seein’ Lafleur like this seems ter worry him more than he’d like ter admit, it seems ...

Sev’rus scans th’ strange box.

“It is not a mere puzzle box to summon the Cenobites,” he says. “There is something inside, something the Cenobites guard ...”

“Sennerbites?” I ask, “What’s that?”

“Cenobites are demons,” Ares Irons answers. “They are summoned if someone opens one of these puzzle boxes. Most people do not know what they are up against, when they play with the boxes ... These demons thrive on physical pain as well as pain of the mind. They lure their victims into their realm and torture them. Most victims perish. Some escape, or the Cenobites let them go. The people coming back are not what they were, however ... A few persons, Wizards and Muggles, joined the ranks of the Cenobites of their own free will ...” He pauses.

I think the room suddenly has gone very cold, because I shudder ...

“Where did you get this box?” Sev’rus asks.

“On my request, Mr Lafleur stole it from Matthew Ravendale,” Ares Irons says. He looks at Lafleur, who seems ter age ... Merlin, is his price fer summonin’ the demons somethin’ like that illness Sev’rus told me about, the one Malfoy had?

I look at Sev’rus. On hearin’ th’ name “Matthew Ravendale”, all blood has left his face ...

 

*****  
Matthew Ravendale – High Master of the Order of the Phoenix, Second Head of the Ministry of Defence Against the Dark Arts, pillar of the wizarding community, interrogator of captured Death Eaters, example of righteousness, expert in torture and humiliation ... the owner of a box containing something so precious to him he has it guarded by Cenobites? Why am I not surprised? What secrets are hidden in the box? And what, in Merlin’s name, does it have to do with me?

It is not unheard of to have Cenobites guard a deadly secret ... What price did he pay? What did he promise the demons?

“How did you manage to steal the box?” I ask Lafleur.

Despite his obvious pain, he smiles.

“I gave them what they want most. Thus I managed to open two puzzle boxes. And was allowed to take the third one with me.” He pauses, exhausted. Ares Irons looks grim. He knows what price Lafleur paid for an attempt to expose Ravendale ...

“The Cenobites told me that the secret of the third box can only be revealed to the last living Death Eater.” Lafleur adds.

I feel a wave of anger wash over me. I cannot help it. Not so much because to them I will always be “the last living Death Eater”, but because again, I am a pawn in a power play ... This is the reason Irons summoned me here! He will use me as he used Lafleur ...

Hagrid next to me raises himself up to his full height.

“He’s no longer a Death Eater! And are yeh sayin’ yeh want ter give Sev’rus ter these Cenobites ter nail down Ravendale?!”

For a second, I see Ares Irons’s panther self flicker over his human countenance. He silences Hagrid with a sharp look.

“You do not know me well, Mr Hagrid. You should know, however, that I never would sacrifice a human being to a bunch of demons,” he says in a very low voice. “Someone who has been my teacher at that!”

Admirably, Hagrid holds his gaze, and I have seen powerful wizards averting their eyes before Irons ...

“I want ter know what yeh want ter do,” Hagrid insists. “I may be jes a low-level wizard and a stupid half-giant, but it seems yeh’ve sent another man on a very dang’rous mission, and he doesn’t look well ter me! Fill me in, so I’ll be able ter understand!”

Lafleur coughs. 

“I appreciate your worries, Mr Hagrid, but I will be strong enough to survive the attack. I went of my own account, to help Mr Irons.”

Ares Irons nods to him, acknowledging his answer. He looks at Hagrid for a moment longer, then lowers his gaze.

“It is my duty to detect corruption and crimes in the Ministry,” he explains. “We suspect Minister Ravendale of crimes regarding the treatment of prisoners during their interrogations at the Ministry.”

I cannot suppress a laugh.

“You suspect him right, Governor Irons. I remember incidents ... However, my memory is confused and unreliable. Even if they listened to me when I testified, the court would reject my accounts as the ravings of a madman.”

“I am aware of this, Professor Snape,” Ares Irons says. “This is why I sent Mr Lafleur to find other evidence.”

Lafleur seems to gather all his strength ...

“As you heard,” he takes over, “only you will be able to open the box. And I fear the Cenobites will demand more payment. Besides, the evidence we may find, might be ... very unpleasant for you.”

Although I should have expected such a situation, I feel cold ... I do not wish to be confronted again with what happened in the dungeons of the Ministry ... Mercifully, a lot of memories are half-forgotten, they only surface in my nightmares ... I wish they would remain hidden ... I do not want others, least of all Hagrid, to become witnesses of something which happened in the dungeons ... On the other hand: Irons is right. Ravendale has to be brought down ...

“We need your permission, Professor Snape, to reveal evidence, which most probably will concern your treatment and that of others during the time of your incarceration at the Ministry,” Ares Irons continues. “And we will need your help to open the box.”

Haven’t I always agreed, submitting my own will to a cause, good or evil?

“I will open the box,” I say.

“Thank you, Professor Snape,” Ares Irons answers. Cedric Lafleur bows to me, although he can hardly stand ... I only wish there was a way we could leave Hagrid out of this matter ... I curse my rash decision allowing him to accompany me ...

“If I summon the Cenobites,” I say, “shouldn’t Mr Hagrid leave? There is no need to involve him.”

Hagrid opens his mouth to protest, so I continue quickly: “I do not wish to exclude him, but I fear the Cenobites will not only attack me alone.”

“I want ter stay!” Hagrid protests, “I won’t leave yeh!”

The good and trusting soul ... 

“You do not know what you will be up against, Rubeus!” I retort.

“That doesn’t matter!” he insists.

“You do not know what you will be up against!” I repeat. 

He looks at me, and I know he will go to hell and back for me ... I have never encouraged anyone to be my friend, the few who ever tried I pushed away ... Now, however ... I do not only appreciate Hagrid’s loyalty, I also need it ... There is more ... something I would call ... love ...? It is mutual. Hard to accept for someone like me, who gave up early wishing for such a thing in his life ... I sense the same strange magic between Ares Irons and Cedric Lafleur ... Maybe we will need this kind of magic for our protection ... So I agree to Hagrid’s wish to stay.

“So then,” Ares Irons nods towards the box. “Did you ever open one of these?”

“I did.”

Too well I remember one of the beautiful, intriguing little boxes in Dumbledore’s office, when I was in my last year at Hogwarts. He had wanted to see me for detention, but something had kept him, and I was left alone in his office, waiting. Touching anything in a teacher’s office without an explicit order or permission was strictly forbidden, but I was bored ...

I do not know how long it took me to open the box ... Suddenly the office became dark, and those creatures with their mutilated, distorted bodies and faces came through the walls ... I tried to ward them off with every spell and curse I could remember, but in vain ... They grabbed me and tried to drag me off ... The next thing I knew was Dumbledore’s voice shouting incantations I had never heard before ... The demons released me and recoiled ... I have never been more glad to see Dumbledore, though I have never seen him more irate ... He was right. I had seen enough of what would have awaited me in the world of the Cenobites ... It was my first look into an abyss, but if he had thought it would put me off, he had been horribly wrong ... Part of me embraced the darkness ... What did I know about Cenobites then? During my time as a Death Eater, I learned how one can summon them ... and tried to find the spells to send them back again – to no avail ... Much, much later, when I had returned to Hogwarts as a teacher, Dumbledore taught me the spells to ward them off ...

An involuntary shudder seizes me. I shake it off.

“We should give Mr Hagrid more information what he is to expect, though,” I say.

“Very well,” Ares Irons agrees. “Mr Hagrid, I told you already that Cenobites prey on the physical and emotional torture of other creatures. They look like every torturer’s dream, with clamps and pins, with skin partly removed and flesh twisted. When a puzzle box is opened, they will appear and try to drag their victim into their realm. When the person who opens a puzzle box, however, is supported by one or more persons who are loyal and friendly towards him, it will be more difficult for the Cenobites to reach him. Not impossible, though.”

Hagrid is frightened. Who would not be? He repeats, however: “I gave me word. I’ll stay. I’m not keen on these demons. Sound as bad as th’ Dementers ter me. But I’ve come ter stand by th’ Professer, and I won’t leave him.”

“Very well,” Ares Irons says, so without another word, I start to work on the puzzle box. It is much more complicated than the one in Dumbledore’s office, much more intriguing ... I do not know how long it takes me to push the right parts into the right places ... Part of the magic of a puzzle box seems to be that you lose your sense of time ... 

The box opens into a seven-pointed star ... I look around. All light has faded from the room, except a strange twilight ... They are here: four Cenobites ...

Their leader, pale and bald, his face scarred in rectangular cuts, at the centre of each rectangle a pin ... The one they call the Chatterer, his chattering teeth the only recognisable feature in the mass of scarred, twisted flesh that has once been a face ... Two females ... One of the women has all skin peeled away from the upper part of her skull and fixed to her shoulders with clamps ... More of her I cannot see, because when the other woman pushes herself into the foreground ... pierced and scarred as her face is now, I recognise Bellatrix Lestrange ...

I begin to speak the incantations which will hold them at bay. Lafleur and Irons do the same. While I speak the words, I send thoughts of gratitude for all his friendliness, loyalty and patience to Hagrid. I can feel his ... love ... To Ares Irons, who is standing at my other side, I send gratitude as well, receiving his ... respect ... for the teacher I have been to him? I can also sense Lafleur’s love for Irons and his admiration and respect for Hagrid’s courage ... Lafleur has an immense power, this is why he is still standing ... We have created a quadrangle of loving protection against the Cenobites’ quadrangle of blood, torture, hatred, and despair ...

“So you joined forces, Old Man,” the leader of the Cenobites says in his deep, rough voice. “The Panther Man, the last of the Death Eaters, and the Half-Giant.”

“A filthy Mudblood, a traitor, and an animal!” Bellatrix hisses contemptuously. “I thought your taste was more refined, Lafleur!”

The Cenobite leader ignores her. 

“Severus Snape,” he says, turning to me, “so good to see you again. Did you finally find the courage to open another puzzle box? It was a pity we could not entertain you a while back. If you joined us now, though, I am sure your decision would be more – informed.” 

The scalped female giggles. The Chatterer gnashes his teeth.

I ignore the taunting words and look at the open box in its star form. It contains little glass bottles in small compartments at every point. They all have different colours. The liquid in them is moving, swirling ... Each bottle has a label with a name on it: Narcissa Malfoy. Peter Pettigrew. Walden MacNair. Gregory Goyle. Lucius Malfoy. Victor Bulstrode. Severus Snape ... The names of six Death Eaters, Voldemort’s last allegedly faithful followers ... all but Gregory Goyle ... His father killed himself, and Gregory resisted his arrest and killed an Auror ... Poor misguided boy ... Narcissa ... Why Narcissa? Did she not leave with Draco?

I can guess what the bottles contain: Matthew Ravendale’s very own private collection of torture and humiliation ... The bottles contain memories: Ravendale’s memories of his best hours in the dungeons of the Ministry, which are also the memories of his victims ... Apparently, the only persons who can access the memories without his presence at all are his victims – if they survive an attack of the Cenobites ... Did he give a few of them the dubious privilege of seeing their own humiliation before he had them killed ...? I must be the only one who is still alive. This explains why except Ravendale himself only I can open the box ... 

There is another spell surrounding the memories, which wards off the Cenobites. It is strong. The Cenobites cannot break it. They are forced to guard what is their elixir of life – without ever getting a taste – unless Ravendale allows them to feed ... Probably they expected things to turn out differently, but Ravendale must have kept them starving, keeping the memories a special treat ...

“Open your bottle,” Bellatrix demands. Her pierced face is contorted with greed and hunger. She approaches me – and recoils howling from the magic shield we maintain.

Ares Irons addresses the Cenobite leader.

“I take it you will offer a bargain.”

“Ravendale betrayed us,” the Cenobite admits. “He summoned us and promised us fear, despair, pain and humiliation as our nourishment, if we guarded these memories. He broke his promise.” The scarred face contorts in hatred. “What he gave us was nothing! The Old Man solved the first puzzle. He fought us off when we attacked him, but he gave us blood and pain which we demanded as payment. We allowed him to solve the second puzzle and to retrieve the box, which only can be opened by Matthew Ravendale and the last of the Death Eaters.”

“What do you want?” Ares Irons asks brusquely.

The pale Cenobite smiles.

“What we always want, Panther Man: Suffering. And the same as you: Severus Snape’s memories. They will give you Matthew Ravendale. We demand to be present when Severus Snape opens the bottle containing his memory.”

Compared with the Chatterer’s mindless gnashing, the scalped woman’s vapid giggle, and Bellatrix’ animal-like hunger, the Cenobite leader’s words are a mockery of honourable politeness ... it makes him appear almost human, which is even more horrifying ...

“This is not for me to decide,” Ares Irons answers. 

“You want them. I want them,” the Cenobite says.

“It is not for me to decide.”

“Make him obey, if he will not do it voluntarily!”

Ares Irons smiles in his special way. As a teacher at the Auror Academy, I had my misgivings about that smile ... 

“This would make me no better than Ravendale,” he says.

“You would break Severus Snape,” the Cenobite amiably agrees. “However, you would also bring down Ravendale.”

“Not at that price.”

The Cenobite leader stares furiously at Irons. He seems to be accustomed to people who want something badly, ready to do everything to get it. It seems as if he was prepared for someone negotiating on his own terms ... Finding Irons unwilling to play his game seems to irritate him.

I hesitate. I am given a choice ... Lafleur chose to give his blood and to suffer pain, Hagrid chose to stay when he could have left, Irons chose to give me the freedom to back away from horrible memories, from pain and shame, to keep my sanity, what peace of mind I have regained – even at the price of losing evidence against Ravendale ...

“Yeh needn’t do this, Sev’rus!” Hagrid implores me.

On hearing his voice, Bellatrix turns to him.

“Or at least give us the Half-Giant,” she purrs. “I never tasted the flesh of a half-giant –“

She senses that Hagrid’s untrained magic is the weakest link in our chain of defence, and like a predatory animal, she pounces on him, lodging her teeth into the muscle of his lower arm ...

Curse it! Our attention had been focused too much on the Cenobite leader ... Our reinforced protection around Hagrid pushes her away a second later, but too late for Hagrid to remain unharmed ... 

Howling, Bellatrix recoils at her master’s feet. The Cenobite leader looks at her without pity. A movement of his hand, and a dark hole opens in the floor. It is filled with rows and rows of gnashing teeth. Screaming in agony, clawing with bloodied hands, trying to cling to the edge of the hole, Bellatrix is engulfed by the hungry mouth. It is a horrible sight, but the woman known as Bellatrix Lestrange is a demon now. Her leader’s punishment will not kill her ...

Hagrid actually takes a step forward as if to pull her out of the abyss, but Irons intercepts him before I can reach out ...

Hagrid clutches his arm. Quickly, I hurry over to him, applying my mouth to the wound, sucking away as much as I can of the Cenobite’s venom. I curse my hesitation ... it was me, still hesitating to open the box, who brought this upon him, and Merlin knows what venom the Cenobite has brought into his body ...

“I will open the bottle,” I say. “With the Cenobites present.”

I snatch the bottle labelled with my name from the box, pull the stopper –

.......

I am in a cell in the dungeons of the Ministry, chained to the wall, wearing the remnants of a dress, my face is painted ... Everything is there: the stench of my own excrements, of my own filth, the cold, the pain in my body, the dark, my thirst, the horror of going mad ... of feeling grow in my body what is Ravendale’s child ... I whisper the spell over and over ... rabbits can resorb their embryos if their warren is too crowded, Nifflers can do this ... 

The door opens ... He is here again ... He who calls himself my master ... The master of the air I breathe, of the food I get, of whether I will be allowed to wash and to have a bucket in my cell or not ... Only I served another such master already ...

He enters the cell .. I feel the strong protection spells he is guarding himself with ... Deep inside he is afraid ... not so much of me, but of what I represent to him ... He comes close to where I am chained to the wall, unable to sit or to stand properly ... Enjoying every moment, he stares down at me ... I meet his eyes, obscuring my mind to him, obscuring my hatred, my shame and humiliation as best as I can ... My only purpose of existence is to withstand him ... Why ...? He has broken me already ... I do not know why I fight any longer ... If I kill the thing growing inside of me, he hopefully will not try again ... but what will keep him ...? I wish for death ... 

He opens his trousers. A wave of his fingers lengthens my chains enough for me to do what he orders.

“On your knees. Turn around.”

He opens me up with dry fingers and then takes me. I try not to scream ...

He does not come in me; instead, he orders me to turn around again and to kneel in front of him.

“Clean me up. You know what will happen if you try to bite me.”

I begin to do what he ordered me to do, when he kicks my face with his knee. I feel my nose break and my upper lip split. Bewildered and stunned, I look up through the dirty tangles of my hair ...

“Say it! What will happen if you bite me?”

Ah ... this ...

“You will have my teeth removed,” I manage, spitting out some blood.

“Master!” he yells and kicks me again.

“Master,” I repeat obediently, speaking the resorbing spell over and over in my mind ... I will not die giving birth to your creature ... But I can’t even bash my head in at the walls ... He saw to that since I tried ... Neither can I bite through the veins of my arms ...

Before he reaches his climax, he grabs my wrist, looking at the Dark Mark ... Voldemort is dead, but Evil is not ... The Dark Mark seems to be an aphrodisiac for some people ... Ravendale is no exception ... He has never been a Death Eater ... always much too clever for this ...

He ejaculates into my mouth, then orders me to bring myself to completion ... I try ...

“What is taking you so long? Fuck yourself, Whore! Imperio!”

Even under the Imperius, it takes its time ...  
.......

 

Swirling mist ... faces – Ares Irons, grimly composed, the Cenobites behind him, their faces distorted in hellish rapture and glee ... I dare not look in Hagrid’s direction ...

“That will do,” Ares Irons’s voice. “The scene clearly shows how Ravendale abused the power of his office –“

He is cut short by the Cenobite leader.

“It is not over yet.”

.......

A cell again ... Darkness. I shiver on the cold, wet stones. The metallic taste of blood is in my mouth ... The boy is with me ... Goyle ... Now I remember everything ... When Ravendale realised that I had managed to resorb the embryo, he made me rape Goyle under the Imperius ... I tried to withstand the magic ... I tried ... in vain ... They must have given him fertility potion ... And when it was too late, when the boy’s time had come, when no resorbing spell would work any more, Ravendale had put us into a cell together ... in Azkaban, where no magic can be done ...

It was me who brought this upon him ... I deserve what I get, but not the boy! Do not let him die in this horrible way ...

I listen. Harsh, laboured breathing, then a moan. Chained to the wall, I cannot help him. The boy’s hour must be near ... He screams in agony, he cannot deliver ... I cannot help him, I have nothing ... His screams are terrifying, he cannot give birth ... He will die ...

They must have watched us, the bastards ... A guard rushes in ... He cuts the boy open, takes something away, squirming in his arms ... alive ... 

Darkness again ... It is deadly quiet, apart from hoarse gasps from the dying boy, no longer screams ... I hear a broken voice sing, and I recognise it as my own, singing to the agonised sobs of Goyle, dying ... “Double, double, toil and trouble ...”

.......

Swirling mist again, and in it the face of the Cenobite leader ... A rush of pain makes me scream ... and the demon looks strangely comforting ... 

“You gave us what we wanted, Severus Snape ... We will make you an offer ... Join us ... join us, and you will be revenged ... You and the boy ... A little patience, and Matthew Ravendale will be ours ... Yours, Severus ... Join us ...”

Invitingly, he steps aside, showing me a fantasy fuelled by my own madness ...

I see myself, a black-winged demon of death and darkness ... Ravendale chained to a rack, his belly opened, he screams ... I have a pair of tongs in my hand, order him to open his mouth ...

No, no I have had enough of such things! I will have no part in this! Such were the darkest dreams of my youth, and I have seen how bitter they can become ... I will have no part in your eternal hell! Revenge it may be, but will it make Goyle live again? I will have no part in this!

There is light ... The Cenobite howls in anger and recoils, vanishes .. A voice, Hagrid’s voice ...

“Sev’rus? Sev’rus!”

I look around ... I am in Ares Irons’s house again, sitting in a chair at the big table ... The Cenobites are gone ... Hagrid is kneeling next to me, one arm around my shoulders ... Vaguely, I see Lafleur approach me, gently taking something from my hand ... Irons with a guard, giving an order ...

“Sev’rus,” this is Hagrid, “It’s aright, ev’rythin’ is aright.”

Nothing will ever be alright again, but if Hagrid says so, I am almost inclined to believe him ... I stare at the polished surface of the table before me, then at my hands in my lap, my fingers clutching an invisible throat ...

“He made me rape Goyle under the Imperius!” I manage.

“Merlin!” 

Better to tell the whole shameful story ...

“It was a punishment ... He made me pregnant first, but I managed to resorb the foetus. There is a spell ... I did not think ... I should have ... It would have spared Goyle ...”

“Sev’rus,” Hagrid interrupts me, tears in his eyes, “I’m not blamin’ yeh fer anythin’. How could I, ever?”

He does not go on ...

“I don’t know, Rubeus ... I don’t know what became of the child ...”

Hagrid holds me close, and for a moment I hold him as well ... I wish I would never again have to let go of him ...

My eyes fall on his torn and bloodied sleeve.

“Your arm ... We’ve got to look after your arm ...”

“Ah, ‘s not much, really. I think yeh sucked out most of th’ venom already.”

The wound is swollen and no longer bleeding. I do not like its look. Hagrid seems to be in pain. He will of course shrug it off, but I will have nothing of it. I get up, announcing my intention to leave with Hagrid. Irons and Lafleur come over to us. Lafleur’s hair has become grey, his face wrinkled and he walks slowly and painfully. 

“A wound inflicted by a Cenobite is nothing to be trifled with,” he warns.

“You are the one to talk!” Ares Irons frowns at him, arms folded. 

“Yes, dear Ares, I’m the one to talk,” Lafleur answers gently. With trembling fingers, he takes a small bottle from a pocket in his elegant robe and hands it to me.

“You know what this is?”

I take the small bottle, hold it up to the light. The liquid inside shimmers in a perfect blue, the deepest, clearest blue I have ever seen. I have brewed this potion only once ... Much too young to know its value ... Bribed by Malfoy, Slughorn had allowed me to use the ingredients ... He sold it as his own ...

“The Antidote to all poison,” I answer. “End of Pain.”

“Take it.”

I look at Lafleur. End of Pain is very expensive and very hard to come by, because of the rarity of some ingredients: A tear and a feather of a phoenix ...

“I have more,” Lafleur assures me. “Take it.”

I am sure Hagrid will need the potion soon. However, to my knowledge, End of Pain has only ever been used for humans ... Pure Phoenix tears are said to work for every living being, but End of Pain – will it work for a half-giant? There is no time left for questions, though ...

I thank Lafleur and carefully put three drops of the blue liquid on the bite wound on Hagrid’s arm. Hagrid hisses in pain ... I do not like it ... Neither does Lafleur, who frowns. Ares Irons summons a roll of bandages from a drawer in his desk, and I dress Hagrid’s wound.

“’S better now,” he smiles at us encouragingly, but I am not fooled ... Neither are Irons and Lafleur.

“You will leave for Nameless Island now via Portkey. There you will immediately see a healer,” Irons orders.

“Yes, Sir.”

Irons turns to me. “Professor Snape,” he says. I see the bottle labelled with my name stand on his desk, filled with the swirling mist again, stopper in place. “As we speak, Matthew Ravendale is being arrested. And by Merlin’s Beard, he will give us all the memories he has bottled! They will serve as evidence in court!”

I sway a bit, but I remain standing ...

“You will need me to testify that what you saw are indeed my memories?”

With a brusque movement of his hand, Irons summons a piece of paper, a pen and an inkwell from his desk. 

“It will suffice if you do it in writing, here and now.”

Too exhausted to thank him, I sit down again and write a few sentences:

“I, Severus Snape, currently Potions Master at Hope hospital, Nameless Island, hereby testify that the memories from the bottle labelled with my name and shown to me in the presence of Ares Irons, Governor of Azkaban, are indeed my own. Furthermore, I state that I was force fed a fertility potion and became pregnant while incarcerated in the dungeons of the Ministry for the Defence Against the Dark Arts. I managed to resorb the foetus. While I was kept at the dungeons, I was forced to impregnate Gregory Goyle under the Imperius Curse. He died at Azkaban Prison in my presence, his belly being cut open and the baby being forcefully removed. He was left without any medical care. What happened to the new-born I do not know.

March 20th , 2 ...  
Severus Snape”

My vision blurs and my hand trembles when I give the sheet of paper to Irons.

“We will find out what became of the child,” he says.

I can no more than nod. Part of me wishes I never remembered ... What I hope for is a quick death for the child ... or a good home ... Part of me wishes Irons will never find out, part of me wants to know ...

 

*****  
Both th’ Gov’ner and Lafleur seem aware that Sev’rus paid a damned high price fer them nailin’ down Ravendale ... T’was necessary, I can see that, sech a man cannot be in a public office. I’m angry, though. I wish I could get ter that Ravendale fer what he did ter th’ boy and ter Sev’rus ... B’fore he could hex me, I´d be upon him and tear him in half, th’ bastard ... Ter see Sev’rus bein’ treated like a piece of flesh ... and th’ boy dying without any help ... I want ter rage and ter cry, but it won’t help Sev’rus ...

Th’ Portkey brings us back ter Nameless Island ... Sev’rus is worried about me arm ... Yes, it hurts ... a lot ... Feel a bit under th’ weather, too ... but I think it will wear off ... termorrer, I’ll be right as rain again ...

 

*****  
Rubeus looks definitely unwell when we arrive at Nameless Island. He is pale, shivers and is beaded with cold sweat. Despite his protests, I drag him up to the hospital, but Dr Evans has no other advice for us than to administer the End of Pain Lafleur gave me and to let Rubeus rest. I ask for every book from the library, though, which may contain additional information about Cenobite poison, End of Pain, and the health of giants and half-giants ...

At the hut, I insist that Hagrid go to bed. He has developed a fever which definitely has become worse during our walk home. I am glad when we reach the hut, because his feet barely carry him. He wanted to go home, insisting he would feel better at home, although Dr Evans offered us both a bed at the hospital ...

Fang is still with the Fitzroys, but Freddy emerges from his hole and greets us enthusiastically. In all my worry, this comforts me a little ... A creature happy to see us both ... 

I light a fire and prepare some herbal tea for Hagrid, which he drinks in slow sips. I administer End of Pain again, and Rubeus tells me it lessens his pain indeed. However, his whole arm looks nastily swollen and inflamed ... 

I settle Rubeus into bed and keep the door open, should he need something and call for me, while I return to the books on the kitchen table ... I have to concentrate on my reading ... no time for pain and sadness now over what I remember ... Goyle no longer suffers ... I am no longer a whore ... The child ... Concentrate, Snape! If you do not find out how Cenobite poison afflicts giants, you may lose Hagrid ... I do not like how weak he has become ... Perhaps we should not have travelled back to the island ... I do not want to lose him ...

During the next few hours, I read a lot about the effects of Cenobite poison on humans (if not treated with End of Pain, violent behaviour, craving for human blood, madness and finally death), on house elves (instant death ... should I say they are fortunate?), on Veela and Faeries as well as on humans with Veela and Faerie blood (quite similar effects as those in full-blooded humans) – no word about giants or half-giants, though –

I must have nodded off, because I find myself sitting at the kitchen table, my face on the open tome, when I pull myself up, startled by a loud noise. Rubeus! 

I hurry into the bedroom, where I find him on the floor, unable to get up of his own account. Carefully I help him to sit. His teeth are chattering, his whole body is shaking, he is as hot as a furnace ... I have read that giants can bear stronger fever attacks than humans, but I am afraid ... We should have stayed at the hospital ... Too late now. In the state he is in, I dare not transport him ...

Gently, I lift him up, using a levitation spell for support, and help him onto the chair next to the bed, while I change the bedsheets. He is only half conscious and does not protest when I remove his night-shirt and wipe him down with wet cloths, before administering End of Pain again ... Never more than three drops for a human, but what dosage will be right for a half-giant? ... He seems ashamed of his weakness ... No need ... He did not show disgust when I was ill and he visited me at Azkaban ... and what is more: he saw me with Ravendale, I told him I raped Goyle, and he was not disgusted of me ... How can I ever repay his patience, his strength, his friendship ... ?

“Should I give him a higher dosage of the End of Pain?” I asked Dr Evans at the hospital.

“All I can tell you, Mr Snape, is that in one case I administered six drops to a Centaur, orally, and he lived,” he answered grimly. “However, six drops might kill a half-giant.”

What if I killed the only beam of light I have left in my life ... ?

I try to explain to Rubeus what I intend to do, but he has become delirious and unable to understand me ... So I am alone again with my decision ... However, I will rather live with the consequences, whatever they may be, than just stand by and watch Rubeus die ... Six drops. Administered orally ... Merlin, please, for his sake, let him still be able to swallow ... 

So far, his reflexes are still working ... he swallows. Now I can only hope that it was enough – and not too much. The bottle Lafleur gave me is empty now ...

Rubeus moves restlessly in his feverish sleep ... he flails around, moaning ... It was too much – or not enough? Please, Merlin, not again, not another death ...

He shivers ... I feel his forehead, his hands, his feet ... cold ... his body temperature must have dropped several degrees ... This is too quickly ... I want to get help, to run to the hospital, to beseech the doctors on duty to help Rubeus, but I know they will be as powerless as I am ... And I cannot leave his bedside ... 

He needs warmth ... I take every blanket, his coat, his jacket, to cover him, I add my own coat, my robe, and still he shivers ... I try a warming spell, but it seems as if this only worsens his condition ... So I rub his hands and feet, blow warm breath on them ... This seems to help a bit. In my despair I give him the warmth of my own body ... I still do not like lying down, but keeping Rubeus warm is more important than my fears ... My head rests on his chest ... His heart beats, slowly but steadily, and he seems to calm down ...

Maybe I can rest for a moment as well ... I close my eyes ...

.......

and open them again to an unnatural glow falling through the spaces between the boards of a sloppily boarded-up window ... A table ... an old four-poster bed ... everything dusty and in disrepair ... The surroundings are familiar, though ... I am in the Shrieking Shack at Hogwarts ... but what awaits me now is more dangerous than my former schoolmate, the Werewolf: The boards are torn apart, and in the unholy glare which blinds my eyes the Cenobites await me again ...

“Six drops once is not enough,” the bald-headed leader says, approaching me. 

“The half-giant will die!” the scalped woman giggles.

“He will be ours!” Bellatrix hisses triumphantly. “And neither the Old Man, nor the Animagus, nor you, the great Potions Master, will be able to do anything about it!”

The Cenobites creep closer to the four-poster bed, in which Hagrid lies, half-conscious, flailing about as if trying to ward off the demons ... I cannot let them take him ... There is only one thing to do ...

“Wait!”

The Cenobites turn to me.

My voice falters, but my decision is firm ...

“If – if I joined you – of my own free will – would you let him go?”

“No!” the Cenobite that once has been Bellatrix screams. “You are in no position to bargain, Traitor!” She turns to their leader. “Let’s take them both!”

The Cenobite leader approaches her. She recoils screaming, when he puts out his hand ... Wire pierces the flesh and bones of her jaws, clamping them together. Her muffled screams make the Scalped Woman and the Chatterer slide close to her to feast on her pain ...

“We accept your offer,” the Cenobite leader says, turning to me. “If you will join us of your own free will, the Half-Giant will live.”

I can hardly step close to the Cenobite, my whole body is trembling, my mind gibbering with fear which drowns any rational thought ... Compared to the Cenobites, the Death Eaters were innocent children – at least they were still human ... My decision stands firm, however ...

The Cenobite leader offers me his hand, smiling gently ...

“So –“

I want to say “So be it”, but my sentence remains unfinished. The shack door is flung open with a crash. Blinding light again, but the light of day ... 

A well-known voice speaking the incantations which ban the Cenobites ... Their leader recoils from me, as if burned, joins the other demons who creep into a corner, hissing, retreating even more as the wizard who bans them speaks again.

“Enough of your bargains, Pinhead,” Albus Dumbledore says.

“I would have kept my word!” the Cenobite leader hisses.

“You have got enough! Begone!” Again, Dumbledore recites the ban spells.

“No!” I hear myself scream. “No! They will take Hagrid!”

However, under the old incantations, the Cenobites writhe and recoil, finally vanishing into the light from the open door, howling and screaming ... as I stand next to Hagrid’s bed, unable to move, watching Albus drive the demons away ...

When they are gone, he turns to me with a friendly smile.

“Severus, my boy.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder. Furiously, I shake him off and turn to the bed, where Hagrid lies in a restless sleep. He will be lost now ... He will die, and the Cenobites will take him ... I want to howl, scream and fly into a rage ... I do not have the strength anymore, though ...

“Why?” I ask, speaking to Dumbledore, but looking at Hagrid, “I obeyed your orders. If you want to punish me, why do you condemn Rubeus to a painful death and a life as a demon?”

I caress Hagrid’s hot face, when I feel Albus’s hand on my shoulder again ... as warm, solid and comforting as if he still had a physical body ...

“Do you really want to become a Cenobite, Severus?” he gently asks me, ignoring my bitterness as usual.

I find a trace of my old sarcasm.

“Not especially, no. But as we do not have any End of Pain Potion left on Nameless Island, let alone the ingredients to brew more, it would have been the only way of saving him! You have chosen a very inconvenient time to meddle in my personal affairs, Albus.”

Strong, gentle hands take my shoulders and turn me around to face the wise old wizard.

“No one will die and no one will become a Cenobite, my boy,” he says, pressing something into my hand and closing my fingers around it. I catch a glimpse of a feather in the bright yellow, orange and red of blazing flames. The feather of a phoenix ... And a minuscule vial ...

.......

When I lift my eyes and look around, I find myself in the bedroom of Hagrid’s hut on Nameless Island, lying in the bed which I fear no longer, my head on Hagrid’s chest. He must have moved and woken me up ... His sleep is restless ... The fever not broken ... 

I remember a dream ... The Cenobites ... Albus drove them away ... He gave me something ... a tear and a feather of a phoenix ... A beautiful dream ... if it only had been real ...

The fingers of my right hand are closed into a fist, resting right over Hagrid’s heart ... I unfurl them, and on my open palm I find an orange feather and a small vial with only a drop of clear liquid in it ... So it has not been a dream ...?

A knock at the door, a female voice.

“Mr Snape? Mr Hagrid?”

“Who is there?” I call, lifting myself up from the bed.

“Freya Greyback. I heard Mr Hagrid is not well, and as it is my day off, I thought perhaps I could be of any help?”

My first impulse is to send her away, but Hagrid moans in a fever-induced hallucination, still flailing around as if to ward off attackers ...

I need help urgently. In this state, I would not dare to leave Hagrid alone, so it seems as if Dr Greyback has been sent by a higher power.

I open the door.

“Dr Greyback,” I begin hastily before she speaks again, “I have to go up to the hospital to brew an urgently needed potion for Mr Hagrid. Could you please watch over him as long as I am away? I’ll be back in“ – quickly I estimate the time it will take to brew more End of Pain Potion – “about four hours. Thank you.”

Without further questions, Dr Greyback follows me to Hagrid’s bedside. I hate to leave him, but he will be in good hands. Dr Greyback talks soothingly to him, and he seems to calm down ... She fetches water and begins to clean him ... Don’t lose any more time, Snape ...

I hurry away, clutching the treasures Dumbledore gave me. Merlin bless you, Albus ...

Half an hour later, I arrive at the hospital, gasping, out of breath, and almost collide with Dr Crane in the corridor leading to the potions laboratory.

“Mr Snape! How is Mr Hagrid? Has something happened? Can I help?”

Another person offering help ... In my former life at Hogwarts – did I ever notice when someone offered a helping hand? Or did I black out such offers, because I could not accept them anyway? Now I have no other choice than to accept the young mediwizard’s offer ...

“Please, Dr Crane, I need to make a potion for Hagrid immediately. Could you brew more Antitussivum and Chest Liniment for the patients? I think other potions are still in stock. Thank you so much.”

“Antitussivum and Chest Liniment?” Dr Crane asks. “Will do.”

“ Thank you, Dr Crane.”

Thanks to Merlin, the young mediwizard does not ask any further questions, and with no further delay, I begin to prepare the End of Pain, making sure I have the recipe and all the ingredients. When Hagrid will get well again, I will work overtime to pay for the expensive ones I take ... If only he can be saved ... I concentrate on the preparations ... I am grateful End of Pain is not one of the potions which take a month or longer to brew ... 

Three hours later, I hurry home, careful not to break the small bottle containing the precious potion. 

At the hut, I find Hagrid in a bad state. His whole huge body is in a cramp, and he breathes in harsh, laborious gasps. If only it is not too late already ...

“I have never seen anything like this,” Dr Greyback says. “What on Earth did hurt him?”

“A Cenobite.”

“Great Mother!”

I do no longer listen to the mediwitch. Without a further word, I snatch up the glass standing next to the bedside, take the End of Pain from my pocket and measure out six drops.

“He won’t be able to swallow,” Dr Greyback warns.

“He has to,” I answer.

The seizure lessens. We prop Hagrid’s upper body up against the headboard of the bed, stuffing cushions and blankets behind his back. He remains where we place him, his head lolling on his chest, like a large puppet at the hands of two inexperienced puppet masters ... I push my fears away. It is necessary to keep my wits about me...

Slowly, I lift Hagrid’s head ... Huge, dark eyes look at me without really seeing me ... They focus for a moment ... I put the glass to his lips ... Please, Rubeus, swallow, please ... Obediently, he swallows the liquid ...

There is another seizure, but it appears less strong than the first I witnessed. Dr Greyback confirms my observation. The seizure also lessens quicker ... I begin to hope again ...

For the rest of the day, Freya Greyback helps me with Hagrid, without asking any more questions. Every three hours, I administer six drops of the potion. Gradually, Hagrid’s condition becomes better. The seizures lessen both in intensity and in frequency, he has moments of lucidity, and his sleep becomes less fitful ... Will there be enough potion this time to heal him completely?

I see that the young mediwitch is tired. 

“No need to exhaust yourself any longer, Dr Greyback. Thank you for your help.”

I do not want to sound dismissive or abrasive, but I become aware that I did. If I offended her, she does not show it, though. Freya Greyback is not a woman of many words.

“You cannot imagine, Mr Snape, what Wolfsbane Potion means to a werewolf.” With these words, she leaves. I understand what she means: You helped me, I help you. I am grateful.

Mrs Fitzroy arrives with Fang and a pot of soup. She has heard that Hagrid is ill, so she insists I eat something and then rest, while she will look after Rubeus for an hour or two. Hagrid’s temperature has gone down, and his arm looks less inflamed and swollen, the seizures have stopped entirely, so I think I can leave him in her care for a while. 

I eat a few spoonfuls of soup and sit down in the armchair beside the fire afterwards. I think I would be unable to sleep, but wake up two hours later from Mrs Fitzroy’s hand on my shoulder. 

“He’s sleeping quietly, Mr Snape. I’ll be goin’ now. Sorry to wake you up, but I didn’t want you to wake and me bein’ gone without a word.”

She has just left with my thanks, when another visitor arrives. A very old wizard in a dark blue robe, a mass of grey curls spilling out from his hood.

Cedric Lafleur steps into the hut, pushes his hood back and smiles at me. Though in the shape of his true age, he looks better than the evening before. His sharp, ageless eyes twinkle mischievously, when he puts a small bottle on the kitchen table.

“I think Mr Hagrid will need it more than I do.”

“But your wounds –“

“My wounds have healed, so far. For a complete healing I will not need End of Pain. Take it.”

I look at the small bottle. Maybe this will provide just the right amount to heal Rubeus fully ...

“Thank you.”

Lafleur gracefully waves to me and walks to the door. He keeps himself straight and lifts his feet up, but I see it takes him a lot of effort ... At the door, he pulls up his hood and slowly walks ahead to the beach. There he turns and waves to me again. He whistles sharply, and a Hippogryff lands at his side, perching down on the sand, waiting patiently until the old wizard has climbed onto his back. Then he gallops along the beach, taking wing and vanishing into the nightly sky ... No portkey this time ... That Jack-of-all-trades does not take any risk to be traced ... I find myself thinking about whether he will ever be able to become his young self again ... What I have heard about him, though, this does not seem impossible ... He will find a way ...

I realise that visiting me secretly and giving me what he still had of the precious potion is his and Ares Irons’s way of appreciating my permission to use my memory as evidence against Ravendale ...

I return to the bedroom. When I pass Fang in his basket, he opens an eye for an instant, then begins to snore again. Hagrid breathes deeply and regularly. His temperature is almost normal, the wound looks even less swollen and inflamed. When he wakes up, I will give him more of the potion ...

Now I need some rest ... Suddenly I shiver from fatigue. If I leave the door open, I could return to the chair at the fire and be with him in a second, should he need me ... On the other hand, I want to be as close to him as possible ... So I undress to shirt and trousers and lie down next to him on the bed ... No frightening images or memories ... It feels good to have a warm body next to me ... Before I slide away to sleep, I feel a huge arm pull me closer ...

 

*******  
I wake up, and there’s Sev’rus sleepin’ in me arms ... Me brain’s a bit fuzzy, but slowly I get me bearins tergether ... Ares Irons had ordered Sev’rus ter come ter London ... There were those mem’ries they could only get ter with Sev’rus helpin’ ... And what mem’ries they were! Hope I never cross th’ path of Matthew Ravendale ... Never ever wanted ter break sum’body’s bones that badly ...

Things got out of hand somehow ... There were them Cenobites, and one o’ them bit me ... I wasn’t doin’ so well ... I remember we came back ter Nameless Island, and th’ Centaur Docter wanted ter keep me at th’ hospital ... But I’m in th’ big bed at th’ hut now ... And Sev’rus is sleepin’ in me arms ...

Must’ve moved, ‘cause he wakes up with a start. Quickly, he’s off th’ bed ...

“How are you?” he asks. He looks worried, so I must’ve bin really bad ... I remember strange dreams ... Was wi’ th’ Cenobites, and they asked me ter b’come one o’ them, so I could get me hands on Ravendale ... Horrible ... all tha’ pain and torture they live by ... Never see th’ sun and th’ sky ... Me arm was hurtin’ badly, and’ th’ leader promised ter take th’ pain away if I joined them ... ‘T was real bad ... But there was Sev’rus ... I remember he did somethin’ which made th’ pain go away ...

I realise he’s asked me a question ...

“Well enough, I reckon.” I sit up and want ter get out of bed, but it seems this isn’t ter good an idea after all ... Th’ room is spinnin’ and I almost lose me balance. Me legs feel like rubber, and I sit down on th’ bed again ... Didn’t think that pois’nous bite ‘d put me down that badly ... Normally, I’m not that affected when sum’thing pois’nous bites me ... And Sev’rus had taken care of th’ bite quickly ...

He looks at me with stern eyes.

“No getting up today,” he says. “You will stay in bed and rest.”

He’s got his teacher’s voice, so I don’t dare say anything against it. Don’t really know how long I’ve bin out ...

“Th’ animals ...” I protest.

“I will look after them.”

Sev’rus vanishes inter th’ kitchen where I hear him potterin’ around, while I settle back inter bed again. If he says he’ll look after th’ animals, he’ll do it, I know.

I must’ve slept. When I wake up, Sev’rus is there with hot tea and medicine. There’s hot soup afterwards, and I begin ter feel better and stronger ...

There’s a knock at th’ door. Th’ young dark-haired docter from th’ hospital is there, tergether with one of th’ guards from th’ administration building. I know th’ guy. His name’s Hans. Looks fearsome, with piercin’ blue eyes and teeth filed ter points, but he’s good-natured if yeh know how ter get along with him. I hear him say he’ll look at th’ Thestrals, th’ Unicorns and th’ Fanged Deer at th’ outer paddock as long as I cannot do that ... Good ter know. Seems as if th’ young docter came of his own account and brought Hans. He examines me and says th’ same as Sev’rus: I should stay in bed and rest, at least terday, if not longer. So I’ll do that ...

Later, when th’ visiters have left, Sev’rus gives me th’ medicine again. I can feel he cares about me and he’s bin very worried. I must’ve bin so ill, he’s bin afraid of me dyin’ ... I see it in his eyes, although he won’t say a word about it ... 

When th’ night comes, I feel that he settles next ter me in th’ big bed in th’ dark. It seems as if bein’ close ter me means somethin’ ter him ... He has rarely fought me off when I’ve comforted him after one of his nightmares, and if he did so, ‘t was in a gentle way, but he’s never come that close of his own account before ...

I stroke his hair. Fer a moment, I feel his body stiffen, but then he relaxes again ...

 

*******  
It seems we have been very lucky ... Rubeus recovers quickly, and the bite heals very well.

Again, we settle into our daily routines. At night my memories haunt me, but I have grown accustomed to my nightmares and lack of sleep by now. Rubeus never complains, should I wake him. Strangely, feeling him next to me helps ... A few years ago, I would have scoffed at the idea of somebody else’s comforting presence, but now I cannot deny that I feel better sleeping next to Hagrid ... 

I notice that on some mornings he leaves the bed in a hurry, muttering something about seeing to the hurt Hippogryff, or Thestral or whatever animal is in his care at the moment, but I know that he tries to hide an erection ...

For a half-giant and a wizard, he is not old. He is in his best years, in fact ... So, having an erection in the morning is quite natural and surely has nothing to do with sleeping next to me ... Although, if I still could feel sexual stimulation, I would be aroused by his bodily strength, which he so scrupulously controls, not to hurt the most fragile creature ... I should have gone back to my armchair ... but then I am glad I did not ...

One summer morning I find myself lying not next to him but almost on him. I have slept deeply for a change and apparently have come very close in my sleep. I should disentangle myself as quickly and silently as possible, but I feel – protected ... Rubeus is still asleep ... I move a bit, and in his sleep he strokes me ... His hands cup my buttocks, and I become hot and cold at the same time ... It is not right, I think, but ... it feels good when he fondles my bottom ... to my own amazement, I am aroused ... and I push myself against him ... What – what is this? I thought I would never be aroused again ...

“Sev’rus ...” he murmurs. I am surprised to hear my name, but he spoke it distinctly ... I cannot be mistaken ... So he actually means me, he is stroking me ... His hands do not stop their fondling ... I breathe a warm puff of air on his chest, and his hands stop. He has woken up. Now is the moment to get up and leave, but I cannot ...

“Please,” I hear myself whisper, “please don’t stop,” and I am grateful when he obliges me. Involuntarily, I move with his fondling and stroking, pushing up my night-shirt through my movements ... For a moment, his fingers stop again when they touch my bare flesh ... I should tear myself away from him, I really should ...

“Please,” I whisper again. I have rarely been so eager, so hungry for a touch. So hungry that I remove my night-shirt with a spell ... Hagrid’s huge, callused hands feel wonderful, stroking up my back, to my shoulders, my neck, and then back again to my buttocks ... I become aware that I am humping him – a flicker of shame, but it feels so good, and I feel his body answer ... Am I really doing this?

My fingers find the buttons of his shirt, open it, and caress his bare chest ... I breathe onto all the hair, and he shudders ... involuntarily, my tongue slips out, penetrates the thick fur, touches the skin underneath ... He gives a low moan .. His fingers touch the crease between my buttocks ... I spread my legs wider ... I want him to touch me there, but not dry ... We have a jar with ointment to soothe irritable skin ...

I summon the jar and sit up for a moment to take it out of the air ... I feel Hagrid’s huge erection at my lower back – and my own arousal. Merlin ...

Hagrid understands what I want. He generously scoops up ointment from the jar and begins to caress my hole ... It feels wonderful ... I want more, pushing back into his finger which enters me ... I draw my breath in sharply, first from pain, then from pleasure ... Please, please don’t stop ... His huge, rough hand takes my cock, strokes it, a callused thumb caressing the tip ... I can do nothing but try to hold on to his huge chest, and move between that wonderful hand sheathing my cock and the strong, hard finger caressing me inside ... I look into Hagrid’s dark eyes ... Love and admiration ... Hagrid, I think incoherently ... I am Hagrid’s Magical Creature ... The pleasure overwhelms me ...

My head is resting on Hagrid’s chest, and I listen to his strong, regular heartbeat. He strokes my hair.

“Me beautiful Sev’rus,” he whispers. Oh, I have heard these words before, like the lash of a whip, showing the servant his place ... as a mockery after someone had satisfied his lust, using my body ... I know, though, that Hagrid spoke from the depth of his heart, and I believe him ... If I am beautiful and wanted, I can dare to give something back ...

I begin to explore Hagrid’s body, push the hair away from his face, my fingers trace his broad features ... The skin is tanned and rough from being outdoors in all weather ... Former drinking has left its traces as well ... Life has not always been gentle to Rubeus ... He stopped drinking too much, though, of his own account ... His lips are soft, his dark eyes full of longing ... He kisses my fingertips ... Merlin ... I did not know how gentle and innocent sexual contact can be ... I kiss his nose, his lips ... taste a while longer ... He smells of sweat, of musk, of earth and the forest ... His kisses are gentle, he does not invade my mouth, but caresses my tongue playfully ... I dig my fingers into the fur on his chest, kiss his huge brown nipples ... He moans ... I kiss my way down his hairy belly, to the coarse tuft of black, wiry hair just above his enormous penis ... If an artist intended to depict an ancient God of Fertility, he would be well-advised to take Rubeus as a model ... The sheer size is fascinating ... I stroke Rubeus from base to tip and back again, whisper words of admiration ... “Beautiful ... Enormous ... Magnificent” ... I lick, kiss and suck, I caress his enormous balls, his buttocks, until Hagrid, who has writhed, gasped, breathlessly whispered encouragement, suddenly becomes silent ... I watch him ejaculate ... A beautiful sight ...

He pulls me close, and I stay with him. How long has it been since I felt that loved, accepted, and protected? Have I ever wanted so much to give pleasure to someone?

 

*******  
I’m happier than I thought I’d ever be. Sev’rus has become me lover ... I’d never have thought after what I’ve seen they did ter him – which was jes’ a little bit of what he must’ve gone through – that he would want ter make love with anyone again ... 

T’s not all easy and joyful, but I never expected that, anyway. He has nightmares, and th’ day afterwards he’s often irritable and difficult ... Sometimes he closes himself inter th’ small storage room we’ve changed inter his workroom ... When I listen, I hear him cryin’ there, sometimes ... I know it would be dang’rous ter come close ter him when he’s in sech a state, so I give him his space and wait until he’ll come back ter me of his own account ... Jes like a hurt and wounded animal ... Sev’rus always does come back. And that’s what’s makin’ me happy...

Our lovemakin’ mostly is a gentle affair with a lot o’ kissin’; it has possibilities ... Sometimes it seems ter me as if Sev’rus was discoverin’ everythin’ completely new, like it was his first time ... As with everythin’ he’s very thorough, explorin’ me body, makin’ me feel precious when he looks at me in awe and wonder, which he does sometimes ... He also can be awkward ... Told me he hasn’t had ter many experience with givin’ pleasure ... His former lovers didn’t know what they’ve missed ... It moves me ter see how he’s duly notin’ what gives me th’ most pleasure ... Bein’ with Sev’rus is more than I’ve ever dreamed ...

 

*******  
Can this be? Can I, after all these years of terror and violence, dealt out and taken, dare to feel a little happiness? I think of the families I helped to murder; of Goyle whom I hurt so much and could not save; of the child I still hope died quickly ... I tried to find out his fate with Ares Irons’s help, but to no avail ... So sometimes I think I cannot go on ...

But then I see that the potions I brew at the hospital help to ease at least some pain, improve the condition of at least some people ... I think of Rubeus, who loves me, who believes I can go on when I myself do not believe it any longer ... I feel more for him than I can ever find words for ... And then I can go on, despite crushing guilt, despite nightmares and panic ...

Rubeus has asked me to bond with him ... And I agreed. 

The official part is a short affair with our two employers Mr Fitzroy (I do not know how Rubeus managed to persuade him) and Dr Evans as our Best Men. As I will never be a very outgoing person, I would have preferred to spend the rest of the day alone with Rubeus, but he insisted on a small celebration. He looked at me so pleadingly I could not object. We have a small private function at the Four-Leafed Clover: The Fitzroy family, Dr Evans with his wife and son (he is married to a human, and they adopted a child a few years ago), Freya Greyback, Dr Crane and Hans, and the animals, of course: Fang and Freddy. Meanwhile, Freddy has also founded a family. There is a female Tree Roller (which Rubeus calls Brunhilde) and their offspring, five half-grown, fat and almost hairless monsters which gnaw at everything they can reach. I have to admit, though, that they know who in our household is not to be trifled with ...

No big speeches, just hugs for the two grooms from Mrs Fitzroy, Mrs Evans, and Freya, and firm handshakes and good wishes from the men.

Everybody eats and drinks to his heart’s delight, there are happy conversations all around, when another belated guest sweeps in, attracting everybody’s attention. Cedric Lafleur, strikingly handsome and young again, has come to congratulate the newlyweds. 

In a quiet moment, he takes me aside, asks me for a few minutes in private. We decide to leave the party for a while and walk along the main street up to the beach. 

“Matthew Ravendale was arrested the same evening you gave us permission to use your memory as evidence. He was interrogated, finally brought to trial and sentenced to lifelong imprisonment at Azkaban.”

The day is fine and sunny for Autumn, the air very clear. I look at the waves rolling gently onto the shore, the gulls sailing in the sky ... Perhaps I should be feeling something about what Lafleur just told me. Satisfaction? Relief, at least? I feel nothing, though ...

“He never denied anything he was accused of,” Lafleur continues. “He never saw, however, that what he had done was an inhuman abuse of power. During his trial he made clear that he was convinced to have done the right thing. In his book, you all were no longer fellow human beings.”

I turn and look at Lafleur.

“I know.”

Deep inside, I even think that Ravendale was right. At least for my part. I deserved no better. But never Young Goyle, let alone children who never had a chance to live ...

“I have other news for you, Professor Snape,” Lafleur says. “We found other witnesses, corroborating your memories. Among them was the soldier who killed Goyle. A cruel man, to be sure, but a businessman as well. When one of the female – or male – prisoners became pregnant and gave birth to a healthy child, he would take it away and sell it to one of the soldiers who brought provisions to Azkaban. This man in turn sold the children to people who could use them: childless families, people in need of young workers ... and sometimes worse ... He and his accomplices will all see Azkaban from the inside now,” he adds grimly. 

“So?” I ask brusquely. 

“We found your daughter, Professor Snape. See for yourself.”

From one of the pockets in his robe, he takes a small mirror and places it into my hands. I feel the object’s strong magic: Whoever takes it into his hands, will see the whereabouts of a person lost and dear ... a friend, a relative ... I scan the mirror as I have learned to scan magical objects for hidden traps, for deceit, but I find none. The mirror will show me the truth ... 

A garden. A little girl is sitting under an acorn, reading. Not a picture book, but a big leather-bound tome. Black, glossy hair hides her face ... She looks up ... A long face with a nose which will become sharp and pointed, a high forehead, Goyle’s grey eyes, a determined mouth ... She looks serious and seems fully engrossed in what she is doing ... She seems to memorise something. Her lips move silently ... Merlin, is this my daughter? My daughter is alive and well? How old is she now? Six? Seven?

The girl jumps up and runs over to a young couple, who approach her over the lawn. She gives them a hug and takes them by their hands, pulling them over to a swing. Serious and concentrated, she takes her seat ... I have the absurd notion to take her into my arms ... feel that she is alive and real ...

The swing begins to move, a little at first, then more and more, higher and higher. Her black hair flies, her eyes are filled with joy, she laughs ...

I realise I know the young couple, the people who have given Goyle’s and my child a home ... The short, stout, bullet-headed young man is Victor Crabbe. Hopeless at Potions, one of Young Malfoy’s entourage, as his father had been with Malfoy Senior; always playing stupid, but not a bad boy ... They released his father from Azkaban after a year, if I recall correctly ... I heard he died shortly afterwards ... The young woman is Millicent Bulstrode. At school, she was a plump, dour, unfriendly girl with a tendency to bully younger and weaker students. She lost her father ... His memories were among Ravendale’s “treasures” ... She must have suffered a lot ... How much pain and sorrow the Death Eaters have brought to their families ...

I have never seen Millicent Bulstrode smile, until now, in the mirror, looking at her daughter on the swing ...

My eyes burn, and I find my voice will hardly obey me when I turn to Lafleur.

“Do they know?”

He nods.

I hope it will be for the girl’s best ... It is stupid, I will have no say in this, but I tell Lafleur nevertheless ...

“She must never know. Never...” My voice fails me. I would like to hold my daughter close, just once – but this can never be ...

I take one last look at the family ... The girl has abandoned the swing, has taken up her book from the lawn, and is walking up to the house, together with her parents ...

I hand the mirror back to Lafleur.

“Thank you for letting me see her – my daughter.”

“Her name is Jennifer,” he says.

“Jennifer ...” I repeat. Nothing pretentious, a beautiful name ...

Lafleur puts the small mirror away safely into one of this pockets. He knows that I do not want to keep it, even if he asked me. It will be much better if my daughter will never learn that one of her fathers is still alive ... Even better if she will never know that Victor and Millicent are not her real parents ... I am also grateful that Lafleur told me about my daughter when we were alone. Not that I will keep this from Rubeus, but he would have tried to persuade me to keep the mirror, to see her grow ... As much as I would like to, it would cause me only more pain ...

“Let’s return to the party,” Lafleur says with a smile. “One of the grooms will be missed.”

 

*******  
In th’ evening when our guests have left and we’re back home, Sev’rus tells me what Lafleur told him, abou’ th’ mirror and what he’s seen in it ... I’m really happy ter hear he’s got a healthy girl and she’s with a good fambly ... I ask him whether he’d like ter meet his daughter one day, but in a sharp voice he says he wouldn’t ... I can understand he wants th’ best fer th’ girl, wouldn’t want ter upset her; and it would perhaps be ter much fer him ... Shouldnt’ve asked ... That’s me, though. Big, loose mouth ... He didn’t even want ter keep th’mirror ter have a peek at her from time ter time ... That’s me Sev’rus. Maybe, though, he’ll change his mind when a bit more water’ll have flown down the river ... When th’ girl has grown up ... Fer now, though, I think it’s really th’ best thing ter leave th’ Crabbe fambly alone ...

Maybe after so much toil ‘n trouble Sev’rus and I can find a bit of peace now ... 

I tell Sev’rus what I think. For an answer, he kisses and hugs me. When I fold me arms around him, he looks up at me, smilin’. Jes a little bit.

 

THE END


End file.
